We are mere days away from Monster Mash and Thriller being played 147 times each on every radio station in North America.
Thirty-plus-years ago, I would already be vibrating with excitement. I loved Halloween - everything about it. I loved the creepiness (which probably contributed to my adult fear of everything). I loved staying out until (what felt like) way past bedtime. And, of course, I loved falling asleep in the blissful grips of a pre-diabetic coma after consuming my body weight in chips, Cheesies, Twizzlers, and chocolate. Our parents left us to our own devices in a sea of junk food: no rules, no limits other than the confines of our wee stomachs - anatomical boundaries we were more than willing to push to maximize the glorious, high-fructose-corn-syrup debauchery.
Everything about Oct. 31 - from dressing up at school to feeling the chill of the autumn night air - made me downright giddy. I loved the houses that over-committed to the occasion - the dismembered plastic limbs, the animated ghouls, the eerie music, the lights, the fog machines, the cobwebs. Those were the houses where you got the sickest candy. I eagerly sought those houses each year.
What fell to the bottom of our list of priorities when preparing to trick-or-treat in small-town Newfoundland in the ‘80s? Our costumes. It didn’t really matter what you were - you either had on a snowsuit with a white bed sheet over it (the asymmetrical, cut-out eyes always slightly off centre) or a snowsuit with a serial-killer mask (it may have been a princess mask but, in the '80s, all masks looked serial-killer-ish and were rated T for "Totally unsafe, your child is 100 per cent gonna bail on some curbs tonight").
I would put up a bit of a fight when I looked in the mirror and my puffy snowsuit under my costume made me look less like Sheera, Princess of Power and more like if Marshmallow Man ATE Sheera, Princess of Power. But we never won those battles; our protests weren’t going to change the fact that the late-October, Newfoundland air was frigid and we would likely be scaling snowbanks.
I still look at the picture regularly: 1986, a post-trick-or-treat haze; my sister and I, ages five and four respectively, sitting on the puke-green carpet in our cotton-candy-pink-and-blue, one-piece snowsuits and matching Jem masks. My sister is still wearing her mask in the photo, posing and looking at the camera (I think. It's difficult to determine the direction of her gaze through the microscopic eye-hole cut-outs); her hard, plastic pink mullet proudly framing those shiny, marionette-like cheekbones and hot-pink pout. She embodied Jem as best she could. The Holograms would have been proud. I, on the other hand, have my mask haphazardly atop my lopsided toque, sweat-drenched strands glued to my forehead. I have the posture of a large, defeated mob boss. I appear exhausted, staring into some bleak future and eating what looks like an oddly-timed burrito. It was ‘80s Halloween at its finest.
Nowadays, Halloween is a bit more work. The costumes are absurdly lifelike and, for five easy payments of $99.99, they can be yours!
Unless you are a whiz on a sewing machine or host your own D.I.Y. fashion-design channel on YouTube, you’re either going broke or disappointing your children. In this online age, ANY costume is possible (and the kids know it!) - it’s just in Seattle and on back-order and costs more than a week’s worth of groceries.
I get it. We want to make our kiddos happy. And, honestly, family costumes are adorable. But it's nice to reminisce about a simpler time.
Back in the '80s, there was no Amazon or eBay. Mom went to Zellers; you’re either He-Man, Snow White or you're wearing Nan’s sheet again. Easy. My husband told me he went as a mechanic for four years in a row as a child; his parents slapped his dad's coveralls on him and threw some dirt on his face. Boom! Halloween, son!
My oldest offspring wants to be Mario and our only big-chain department store - let’s call it “W-Town” - came through in the clutch. But my toddler has been insisting all year that he will be a gorilla. He adores gorillas (as a baby, he said the word “gorilla” before he said “mommy”. True story). He was unimpressed by my suggestion that he don casual slacks and a collared shirt and go as Jane Goodall, so I started the gorilla costume hunt about a month ago. My lengthy, online search was futile, but I knew I had to make his ape dream happen somehow. I found a light brown bear costume at W-Town that I considered dying black, but who am I kidding: our Dr. Doolittle specifically wants to be a “mountain gorilla” (don’t dare try to pull any “low-land gorilla” over on him, much less a cheaply-coloured, non-primate - have some respect!).
I watched endless online tutorials on how to make a gorilla costume without sewing, and was fascinated to learn that I am too useless even for fabric glue.
I made one last trek back to W-Town and scoured the lackluster and dwindling selection of children’s costumes. Defeated, I began absentmindedly rifling through a bin of adult masks. There it was: a VERY realistic looking gorilla mask. Sure, it was sized for a large, adult head but it was close enough. And it was very much a gorilla!
It was a hit. Rather than engage in our standard daycare pickup ritual where my three-year-old refuses to leave and gives me the stink-eye from across the room, he came running toward me, having spotted my decapitated gorilla friend. He put the mask on and insisted on wearing it for the drive home. He then sat on the front steps of our house and refused to go inside, loving the attention he was getting from passing cars and neighbours. He even slept with it that night - which was mostly adorable and only slightly off-putting.
I sat back that evening, quite pleased with myself. I sipped a glass of wine and planned the rest of his costume: I would dress him in all black and use some of the extra fur from the mask to make furry wrist and ankle cuffs. It would be perfect.
The next morning, he toddled into our room, as usual, and climbed into our bed. I asked him if he wanted to bring his new “gorilla friend” to daycare that day.
His response?
“I don’t want to be a gorilla anymore. I want to be a rhinoceros."
Well, eff.
We go so over the top nowadays (my friend actually turned her wagon into a firetruck with sirens and flashing lights last year for her three-year-old “firefighter”). Families are going out in themed attire to back their children's costumes. Back in the day, the theme was “Kids trick-or-treat while dad waits in the car with the heat blasting, listening to Kixx Country radio, cigarettes optional." Not now. Newborn baby Elijah “wants” to be Simba? Well, guess whose family is going as the entire cast of the Lion King?
I get it. We want to make our kiddos happy. And, honestly, family costumes are adorable. But it's nice to reminisce about a simpler time.
Full disclosure: our littlest is back on the gorilla wagon. I managed to find a costume to rent only 32 kilometres away. But, just so you know, I was more than ready to send him out as a floral sheet ghost.
The things we do for our kids…
Happy Halloween! And remember folks: no child wants those hard toffees in the orange-yellow-black wrappers. You're welcome.
Heather Huybregts is a mother, physiotherapist, blogger (www.heatheronarock.com), YouTuber and puffin whisperer from Corner Brook, NL. Her column appears biweekly.