My Halloween Spirit

I love Halloween. 

I love all the creativity that comes with celebrating the holiday.  After a couple years of my spirit being dimmed by Covid I am ready to bring out the creative juices and celebrate this year.  My desk at work is already covered in candy skulls and spooky garland.  The search for the perfect Halloween costume for both me and Francis is underway.  It’s exciting looking forward to things that have always given me so much joy because these past few months have just been about survival.

From my first Halloween back in the eighties I was hooked. At the time we were dirt poor to spend money on frivolous things so my mom would make my costumes.  As a child, I dreamed of store-bought costumes, especially when my cousin wore a maid’s outfit and hers was sexy while the one my mom made me was historically appropriate.  I looked at her shiny, short skirt trimmed with lace and her off the shoulder top and compared it my puritan style costume.  Same when we wore nurse outfits, mine was straight out a hospital while my cousin looked hot in hers.  I didn’t realize then, that kids also envied my costumes which weren’t just authentic, they were really nicely made.  In high school, I decided that I wanted to dress as Juliet and my mother again made my beautiful renaissance costume, this time I did hear remarks from other students jealously saying that they would never spend so much money on costumes.  The funny thing is that my costumes were homemade specifically to save money. 

Eventually my mom’s intention to remain authentic to the costume was passed on to me and I realized that I wasn’t the type to use Halloween as a vehicle to trampy.  Halloween was a day I could be anything I wanted to be, even a saint!  So these past years I have mixed my Catholic faith and my love of costumes to educate others (including myself) on the lives of the saints.  This year, I am not sure if I will dress as a saint because in years past I used to go to our Fall Fest at church with my nephew- and he’s a teen now too old to participate. Sigh! However, I still plan to dress up to work staying true to integrity of the character that I will bring to life.