It’s October. Summer is officially over and it’s time to embrace all things fall from corn mazes to falling leaves to COSTUMES!
That’s right. October means Halloween and Halloween means costumes. I love dressing up and every year I look forward to planning out every little detail of what we will wear.
You see, we are family costumers. There is a theme. We all dress accordingly and have since Griffin was born. I love getting dressed up and I love being part of a group and I love these hooligans I call my family so it really is the perfect scenario for me.
It’s gotten harder as we have to work around actual children with actual preferences (aka we will be dressed as some types of superheros again this year) but I never tire of the challenge.
Since family costumes take a bit more preparation, I thought I’d give you a couple ideas early in the month in case you wanted to force – I mean lovingly guide – your family into a theme.
Baby Lobster and Chefs
Griffin’s first Halloween he was the lobster and we were the chefs. We literally carried him around in that pot for part of the night and it was a HIT. The lobster costume was adorable and it’s an easy theme to coordinate for new parents because all you need is white jackets and chef hats.
Pirates and Baby Parrot
My entire family got in on the act this year. We all dressed as pirates and Griffin was our parrot. Nicholas made Griffin’s costume out of felt. It was basically a blue felt poncho with felt feathers glued on. We rented our costumes, which was more expensive, but dang we looked good. The best part was the theme for my favorite house on Jefferson Street was Peter Pan!
The Wizard of Oz
When we added baby Amos to the mix, we suddenly needed four costumes instead of three – opening up a new world of possiblities! The Wizard of Oz is the perfect fit for those with boys and I’ve got to admit – wearing the ruby slippers was more fun than I expected it to be! Also, my mom got in on the act and it was awesome.
Spiders!
2012 was the first year Griffin had a costume request. It was all Spiderman all the time at our house so we knew that would be our theme. Griffin was Spiderman. Nicholas was J. Jonah Jameson. Amos and I were the radioactive spider and his web. Thanks, Martha! It worked out perfect since Amos still needed to be toted around and people flipped for my skirt!
The Avengers
Superheroes are on heavy rotation ALL the time at the Holland house so the Avengers were a natural choice. This was before I was pregnant for a million years so I could rock Black Widow. Also, Amos was the most amazing Thor ever and kept that costume on for the next 3 months.
Harry Potter
Harry Potter offers lots of great choices no matter the mix of boys and girls. We went with Hermoine, Harry, a dragon and Professor Quirrell because Griffin had only read the first book. My parents were Hagrid (worked well since he was carrying our little dragon most of the night) and Professor McGonagall.
Mario Brothers
This was a HIT and let's be honest Felix was the most amazing toad in the history of the world. We cobbled together bought, borrowed and homemade costumes for this one.
