trick or treat

so i came across this photo taken when i was like six years old on halloween. when i was a kid, they had those plastic masks with the elastic band that goes around the back of your head. most years i was some form of a white girl. it was either that, or an animal, like a cat or a rabbit, or a cartoon character, like casper the friendly ghost. in this photo, i am heidi, with long yellow yarn braids, and a swiss miss dress and cap. my sidekick is dennis the menance. 

i remember the first year that i didn't wear a mask. i wanted to be a wahine. i wore a little hawaiian print dress, with a plastic lei around my neck, and a plastic flower behind my ear. i even had these outrageous plastic eyelashes...which meant i could not see very well as they were cumbersome, and i stumbled about that night from house to house. the thing that really sucked was that it was cold that year and my mother made me wear a coat so you couldn't see my costume. 

when i got back home with my loot, my adult cousin (who was more of an older brother) would "inspect" my candy. of course, this meant him taking all the candy he liked for himself. he would say things like, "oh, this kind is NOT good," and then he would pocket it. there is something about spreading the contents of that bag of candy all over the living room carpet and going though it. kinda like grabbing the loot that fell from a broken piñata at a birthday party. this kind of acquisition of candy makes it much more valuable than buying it from the drug store. 

when i was in my 20s, i still liked dressing up. okay, call it what it was...cosplay! my favorite character was some form of royalty...anything to wear a tiara. then ballerina. one year i was a baby wearing a giant diaper and bib...even had a giant pacifier and giant diaper pins. as the years went on, it was easier to just put on a little black dress and a witch's hat. i was too busy to make costumes for me since i was busy making costumes for my kids. no plastic faces and crappy hot synthetic outfits for my kids...i was the overachiever mom. so we had peter pan, captain hook, the flinstones, luke skywalker, ghostbusters, ghosts, robin hood, cowboys, pee wee herman, superman, and pinocchio, to name a few...but my very best favorite...roger rabbit. 

i know that there are people who don't let their kids participate in halloween because they are against it for religious reasons. but personally, i think running up and down the street, giggling and laughing your head off while in dress up clothes, and getting all the free candy you can in a single night, is a pretty fun thing for kids to do. one of those things that they will remember when they are older and feeling nostalgic...or had just come across a random photo of a halloween past. to me, it's just like christmas...santa has nothing to do with bebe jesu...it's just about letting your imagination live freely.