Boo!

So last night was Halloween and I can truthfully say that I am glad it's over. I am one of the few people I know who doesn't like the yearly ghoul fest that takes over the month of October.

Now don't get me wrong, I like seeing little children in cute costumes come traipsing up my walk...I like hearing their little voices trilling out "Trick or treat"...and I like seeing the brief confusion on the older ones when I say "Trick!"...but I don't like being scared, I don't like creepy costumes, books or music, or the emphasis on the evil undead and despite my neighbour's best efforts to convince me that the "House on Haunted Hill" (1959) is a classic, I do not now, never have and never will like scary movies...

And right now I am exhausted (as is my husband) because we have four young children who love go out trick or treating (really? is that a verb?)...which means four costumes to either buy, or in our case, make...

Around mid-September, my boys came to me and holding the Christmas edition of the Sears catalogue aloft, informed me that for Halloween (yes, Halloween costumes in the Christmas catalogue) they wanted to be Obi-Wan Kenobi (from Star Wars Episode 1-that would be Ewan McGregor-for those of you who may have been living on another planet for the last 30 some odd years) and Batman.

Now, the Obi-Wan costume I could understand, since it was Ian making the request and the boy loves Star Wars...but Jamie wanted to be Batman, which I found an odd choice, since he's never seen Batman, other than a commercial or two and in the Sears catalogue...what I really couldn't understand though, was the cost of the costumes...$60 each...and doing the mental math, I realized that if we were to buy all four kids costumes for Halloween, we would be spending over $240 (don't forget there's tax on top of everything)...and that doesn't even include the cost of candy to hand out to other kids...

As September rolled into October and Halloween inched ever closer, I kept hoping the boys would change their minds and maybe want to go as the Transformers they were last year, since they still had the costumes and had worn them periodically over the last 12 months...but, no such luck. Obi-Wan and Batman were what they wanted and they were not changing their minds for nuttin'...luckily the girls wanted to be fairy princesses, which meant they could wear their Easter dresses (purchased for Easter 2007, obviously way bigger than they needed at the time) yet again and would only need some (dollar store) wands, tiaras and wings...

The problem of what to do for the boys remained, though, until earlier this week, when inspiration struck...my sister had emptied her closets a few months ago (her son had outgrown some of his things and so she handed them off to my boys) and included in the pile of pants and shirts was the very large piece of dark brown fabric with which she had used to cover her old dining room chairs...

Eureka! Enter Obi-Wan's cloak...followed by a pair of khaki coloured pants, a white tunic (which is my beach cover up), strips of brown cloth wrapped around Ian's waist and legs, one toy light saber (a Christmas gift from last year) and the worried look on Ian's face was replaced by smiles of joy...

As for Jamie's Batman costume? Well, someone had given the child a Darth Vader costume last year at Christmas (I can't remember who it came from) and we tried and tried to convince Jamie to go out as Vader, so he and Ian could "battle" for their candy...but no, Batman was what he wanted and Batman is what he got...because we turned the Vader costume inside out, put Ian's yellow belt from karate around his waist, and were given a Batman mask (from last year's Halloween bonanza) from our friends and neighbours, Shelby and Ian...and poof! One Dark Knight at your service...

(A little note about the mask...before Shelby found the Batman mask, we were a little stumped about how to make one for Jamie-I had the idea of cutting his Bumblebee mask from last year-it was ripped anyway-and putting black electrical tape on it and Brian made the actual mask...it looked really close to the Batman one, but once Jamie saw the mask from Shelby and Ian, that was the one he wanted)

The kids, dressed in their Halloween glory and in layers (Canadian tradition states the costume must be able to fit over snowsuits and/or sweaters and jackets), grabbed reuseable grocery bags (they weren't the only ones carrying them, I noticed) and headed out the door with Brian, while I sat on the front step handing out candy to the wandering masses...

So although I remain a somewhat less than entralled fan of Halloween, and am glad that it's over (other than the 50 pounds of candy the children are now trying to wade through), I am willing to put up with it all, just to see the happiness on my kids' faces...

Happy Halloween!