Halloween costumes and dressing up makes this holiday most enjoyable for me.

I am not alone. Nearly 70% of Americans spent $3.2 billion on Halloween costumes in 2018 for themselves, their children and their pets, according to an article by The Balance.

During the years, I swayed between dressing up and not, celebrating big and small. It depended on the year and what was going on, I guess.

If given a choice, I’d want to dress up – even if it wasn’t a stellar costume and even though I no longer have a lot of clothes.

 

Halloween a chance to dress up

Then again, I come from a theater background, with creative family and friends who encouraged such activities.

I remember one Halloween when my kids were young. My aunt and cousin showed up at my house in full costume as Captain Hook and Tinker Bell. They needed a Peter Pan, and I was it. I still joke about walking around town with my ass hanging out. It was likely a children’s costume that I squeezed into. Granted I had on tights, but it was a very short outfit.

Even as an adult, I sometimes dressed up in a Halloween costume for work. There were a few times I was the only person to do so. My co-workers probably thought I was odd or really into Halloween. Both would be correct.

Mostly, I just wanted a chance to dress up.

 

Creative Halloween costumes

Some costumes were more creative than others. One year in college, I went as the bride of Frankenstein, ratting my hair and spraying it with cans of hairspray while I held my head upside down to try and get the classic upswept look.

One year when I was a reporter, I wore a fedora and tucked a card into the brim of the hat that said “Pull.” It’s an old Three Stooges joke. (Moe, Larry and Curly, dressed as newspaper reporters, enter and announce themselves: “Press!” “Press!” “Pull!”) I don’t think anyone got it except me.

A couple of years, I went as a skeleton. I cut “bones” out of white felt and tacked them to a black turtleneck and pants, then used makeup to paint a skull on my face, with a black cowl over my hair. It looked pretty good. After going to the work to make the skeleton costume, I wanted to use it more than once.

For whatever reason, I was really pleased the year I was Marla, a character from “Fight Club.” My hair was the right length, I had an outfit I thought worked and I walked around with an unlit cigarette (I don’t smoke but she did) spouting her lines all night.

I enjoyed being Little Red Riding Hood. The red satin cape I sewed was a great costume piece for many years.

When we ran the mini golf and offered blacklight Halloween golf, I loved dressing as a clown. I ran around at full speed all night, which kept me warm, and it freaked people out.

Of all the years we decorated our garage either as a mini haunted house or themed to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, I most liked being the lady with the baby (white nightgown, stringy hair in my face, old baby doll that still cried). It wasn’t a great costume, but it was a great character that creeped people out.

Throughout all of those years, I don’t recall dressing as a witch, although I surely must have at some point. We had a witch hat in the costume box. But we had a lot of things in the costume box – disembodied hands, feet and heads, fake blood, prop knives, all manner of masks, capes, cloaks, handcuffs, hats, gloves. (We had more totes for Halloween decorations, costumes and props than we did for Christmas.)

 

Group Halloween costumes

This year, I hadn’t planned to dress up. I wasn’t going to any parties or even out trick-or-treating. Rarely do I dress up just to hand out candy. Then an event we planned to attend announced Halloween costumes were encouraged. Since we had a group going, I suggested we plan a group costume.

We considered Scooby-Doo, the ’80s and “Stranger Things” but finally settled on a Harry Potter theme. Most of us can wear black with a scarf from our chosen “house,” and voila – you have a costume.

In this world of witches, Dame Maggie Smith plays a favorite teacher, Professor McGonagall. I’m too old to play a student at Hogwarts, so I claimed Smith’s role as my own, with a little tweaking. I no longer own a long black skirt, but I have a short one and lots of black layers for the top and leggings. My hat has a curve in the peak like hers, but mine is silver and lacks feathers.

The beauty of Halloween costumes are they don’t have to be perfect. No one will point out I’m not exactly like her character or I’m too old to wear a Halloween costume. Instead, we’ll all be dressing up together to have fun.

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How to Be a Better Writer Tip

Word choice

I still find myself writing with a bit of flair, even after years of newspaper journalism, blogs and more.

It comes out in my word choices.

While I don’t always write as creatively as I could (you should see what I edit out sometimes), I still allow some things to slide.

In this column, I described my witch’s hat and mention it “lacks feathers.” I’m not sure I would use this phrase if I were talking to someone. I’d probably say “without feathers,” yet to write that in the sentence seemed wrong. I could have said it “doesn’t have feathers,” but that seems, well, lacking.

Truthfully, when I write, I don’t usually dither over the language. What comes out is what is in my head. When I get to editing, then I may change words if I feel they are too archaic, clumsy or likely to be misunderstood.

I may choose to leave a word that’s more creative, as I did in this instance.

Often, I find it’s easier and better to get the content on paper first, then think about the specifics of word choice. You may find a similar process helpful: Write first, then choose the best words.