Like most moms mine is very supportive, and like fewer moms she has a limited understanding of the social media. Earlier this month when I excitedly mentioned to her that for the first time in my life, my Halloween costume was complete weeks in advance, as opposed to the last minute DIY costumes I normally make (although, I'll be honest, through the years many of my costumes were less DIY and more AMMTDIH (Ask My Mom To Do It Herself)....she is much better with a needle and thread than I am, and I have always been better with ideas than the execution of them). Any way, I am getting ahead of myself. In the aforementioned conversation I had with my mom she responded "you know, you really should compile the pictures of all of your Halloween costumes and write a blog about it." I mentioned earlier that my mom has a limited understanding of social media, I made a point to say that because in the past when I have made a comment to her about any sort of attention I have received on Instagram she acts like it is a huge accomplishment. I have tried to explain to her that "100 'likes' is not a lot", but she still gets excited for me and consistently has tried to convince me to do more with it (e.g. insisting I write a blog post and share pictures of past Halloweens). However, as naive as she might be when it comes to my popularity on the internet and the workings of social media, I absolutely adore her enthusiasm, and even more than that, feel grateful for her constant encouragement. So without further ado, here it is, the first of probably very few blog entries that will likely only be read by my personal cheerleader herself, but I'm OK with that, at least I know she will never leave me rude comments or unsolicited advice. ;)
OK, not gonna lie, I really did not get into the spirit of Halloween until I graduated High School. I am sure my mom has more photos somewhere in storage, but these three are the oldest I had on hand. The middle picture is of my cousin, Emma, and me dressed up as Batman and Robin. I think this was our 7th or 8th grade year, and for me it was the last time I dressed up for Halloween for years. Every time I look at that photo I regret that we didn't take a better one, because those DIY costumes are some of my favorite. The other two images were taken somewhere beyond where my vivid memory can reach. Do you ever look at a picture of yourself as a child and wish you could go back in time and hold them? I'm not sure if that is an emotion most people can relate to, but for me I feel it HARD when I see these old photos. I mean, c'mon, look at that bowl cut!
peter pandee
Doesn't this picture take you back? I cannot get over how saturated it is. I love it. I love how photos show their time based on the editing style used on them. This was Halloween of 2015. My first semester of college. I had gone to Disneyland for the first time in my life about a month before, and used all the money I had to my
poor-college-student name to buy this Peter Pan hat. I begged my mom to make me a quick costume to go with it. She is so cool, and she did it, obviously. And so Peter PanDee was born, along with my love for puns and dressing up for Halloween.
andee as andy
This costume was without a doubt my easiest....aaaaaand most expensive! Well, maybe not, but did you know that Woody dolls cost $50?! At least mine did. My mom tried to convince me not to buy it and do a different costume, but I was bound and determined to dress up as my namesake. Well, OK, maybe I didn't get my name from little boy from Toy Story, but we do have the same name and Toy Story was released over a year before I was born so technically I was named after him!
andee.w.
See what I did there? This was the year my best friend and I dressed up as D.W. and Nadine from Arthur. Don't we look great? ;) (I know it is lame to explain jokes, but for those of you who don't know Nadine is D.W.'s imaginary friend...so that is why that is funny) I was living in Arizona at the time and didn't have a sewing machine or any of my craft supplies with me so my mom made me a dress all the way up in Idaho, and my sister, Cindi, made me my wig and shipped them down to me. Like I said, AMMTDIH.
"beam me up, siri"
Halloween 2019 took place a little over a week before Braden and I got married. Almost every penny we had had gone to wedding essentials, furniture for our new apartment, and school tuition. I was so close to just skipping Halloween that year, but then I thought about how one day I would regret that we didn't have costumes from every Halloween spent together. So, we bought a dress and a shirt from DI and a small sheet of grey felt from a craft store for a grand total of $7 and made it work. It took all of my feminine wiles to convince this boy to wear a costume and pose for a picture, but our wedding was only 8 days away, so I had some leverage *maniacal laugh*.
gnome time to waste
Three days before Halloween 2020 I still had no idea what Braden and I were going to be. We tossed around a few ideas, but none felt very exciting to me. I ended up having a dream that I dressed up as a sunflower. I woke up feeling like it was such a revelation and quickly got to work on our costumes. Thinking about it now it was probably less of a revelation and more of a result of me watching too much 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' (just Google "Will Smith sunflower"...you'll see). Braden's beard took HOURS to make and according to my sister, who helped me with the rest of the ensemble, we had to do "some seriously janky stuff" (except she didn't say "stuff") to make it work, but we lived to tell the tale and post an instagram photo, and that's really what Halloween is all about, isn't it?
"HELLO [HALLOWEEN], MY OLD FRIEND"
This may be my favorite costume to date. I have had the idea in my head to dress up as Simon and Garfunkel for years, and this year I finally went for it. In fact, I was so excited for it I had everything ordered and ready to go before the first of October, which is not like me. Shout out to my husband for being such a sport and wearing an itchy wig and blazer for this look. He puts the "fun" in "Garfunkel" ;).