Halloween Costumes and Reflecting on my Inner Goth

Happy Halloween!  I have my girls’s costumes all ready for the big day and for lots of fun playtime after.  My oldest will be Hermione Granger and my youngest will be Snow White.  That in itself says a lot about their personalities individually and I love it.

This week I was doing my hair, just thinking about all the things you think about while curling your hair for no reason on a rainy day, and for some reason I started thinking about all the costumes I wore for Halloween when I was a kid.

First of all, I remember seeing pictures of me as a little kid dressed up as a clown with a rainbow clown wig.  I think my sister might have been a huge M&M.  Now. What is strange about this is, is that I hate rainbows.  Well, ok…I like rainbows because my girls love rainbows and unicorns, but let’s just say I am much more of a goth personality, and to think of me as a happy clown with a rainbow wig…it just makes me wonder what I was into back then. 

Anyways, the other strange thing about this costume is I do remember liking clowns and then I have this sharp split in my memory where I freaking hated clowns and they scared the bejeesus out of me.  Also, important to note, is that this is about the same time frame I started to be terrified of storm drains.  Yes.  I said storm drains.  I would not stand on them or near them, I would walk out and around them, into the street if I had to  walk over them in precious Southern California where, in my memory, there are storm drains everywhere with the little fishes on them telling you to be careful, don’t litter, this drains to the ocean.

Next important thing to add to this story is my dad let me watch horrifying non-kid friendly movies with him all the time.  All the time.  I was destined to become the next Stephen King…but a housewife I happily became instead.  Anyways, the importance of this is that I am now reading It by Stephen King, and I am started to remember little bits and pieces of this story and it’s plot, and this is a book that I would have told you I had never read before or seen the movie before.   And it is all of a sudden becoming more and more familiar to me and it makes me wonder if I watched It with my dad and I now to this day have this “f&^% clowns” mentality. 

Unfortunately, my dad has passed and I may never know but, that is my theory.  I think I saw the movie It as a child and it created this life long fear of Clowns that I could never logically explain to you why I fear them.  The same goes for storm drains.  I really don’t fear much else, except one other weird thing.  I hate escalators.  I have this fear that my or my kid’s foot will get stuck and either mine or my kid’s foot will get my ripped off in an escalator and I just really hate them.  Probably the only thing I hate in life is riding an escalator.  But I like to fly, so I have to ride escalators now and then.  Have you been to Denver International Airport?  If you have, then you know that one realllllly big and tall escalator. Ugh. That is the worst one.

Anyways, 

Since this story was about Halloween Costumes and if you have made it to the end of this rant then let me delight you with some of my other childhood Halloween Costumes.

I was a witch 4 times (4 different years, yes) and my mom made all 4 of my Witch costumes.  I was obsessed with witches, I saw Hocus Pocus in theaters for my 5th birthday as a birthday gift with my mom and best friend at the time in 1993.  (Fun Fact: it was a double feature and I also got to see Andre…what a classic).

Let’s see, in 4th grade I was Princess Leia, the last homemade costume my mom made me.  My hair was so long that she was able to create real hair buns like Leia’s.  You have no idea how much I wish I had a picture of that, but thankfully I do have a memory of it, which is rare for me.

Then in 5th grade I chose to be a Southern Belle…more accurately a Georgia Peach.  Nothing like  the timeless and classic Scarlet O’Hara…we are talking peach and shiny fabric with cheap trims and a big hat and white gloves and a godawful faux pearl necklace.  I think I was going through an existential crisis and my nerd love for history won my vote in choice of costume and all caution was …wait for it… gone with the wind. (you are welcome.)   

Lastly, I remember being what is now I think a banned costume across the US.  I was Scream.  The black robe costume with a enlongated white mask.  My inner goth definitely won my heart that year, and truth be told I think it was the only costume left to be at the store the day before Halloween that year.  But historic memories nonetheless.  Also, I think Scream is one of the best Halloween movies. For me it is a classic, the scene with Drew Barrymore and the white phone and pop corn where she gets a call and he asks , ” Do you like scary movies?” For me it is just one of the best.

Happy Halloween friends <3

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