Dress Up
As the mornings turn brisk, and the sun’s heat fades to just skin-warming, I cannot help but leaf through my childhood memories of autumn – shopping with Mom for the perfect winter coat, opening the front door after school to a waft of what the slow cooker had been cooking all day, rifling through piles of leaves with my best friend (Bailey, my next door neighbors’ black Labrador Retriever), and birthday celebrations complete with meatballs, elaborately wrapped gifts, crazy cousins running amok and pumpkin pie.
However, among my plethora of fond fall memories, Halloween happens to land in my “favorite” category.
From Baby Bop to Sacagawea (I liked history, okay?) to Queen Amidala, I took pride in my costumes. If an idea entered my mind, I was set – there was no way I was going to dress up as anything other than that. Occasionally, that determination translated into my mom and sister-in-law sewing outfits and additions to something we bought or had handy. Weeks before Halloween night, my costume would lay out for me to admire as I walked past it. Waking up on Halloween morning to a sweet goody and note on my nightstand from my parents always started the day perfectly. Then… (insert dramatic pause here) … my eyes would veer to my costume, waiting patiently for me put it on for the annual school costume parade. I would practically fall out of bed in excitement. After breakfast, mom would help me with whatever hairstyle and makeup my costume required. Since my mother was a florist, smartly tied bows appeared in my hair, on my wrist, around my waist and on anything else she could tie a ribbon around, regardless of if my costume required them or not. Then the crowning moment: the donning of the outfit. With the final approval from Mom and Dad that every piece of clothing and appropriate accessory was in tact, we would leave for school.
After about half an hour of strutting my stuff on the playground, inspecting my friends’ costumes and about five hours of Halloween-themed school lessons, I would head home to a nap, because Momma definitely did not want to take a cranky Sacagawea out for more candy. My aunts and cousins would meet us at Headquarters (my aunt’s prime location for supreme candy-hunting), flaunt our carefully chosen outfits and go on our merry way of Trick-or-Treating. With stomachs aching from laughter and pounds of candy in our arms, our family would make our way back to our Aunt’s house to appraise the outcome and do business (“I’ll trade you a Reese’s for a pack of Starbursts!”).
I am almost positive that as a child, I consumed more sugar, enjoyed naptime, ate all my vegetables and could not wait to get out of bed to get dressed in the morning on Oct. 31 more than any other day of the year.
Is it socially unacceptable for a 20-year-old to go Trick-or-Treating? Because I’m pretty sure I could squeeze into this costume again:
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