Crown of Wienies

I was over at Amazon earlier checking on our friends book that was just released and somehow got distracted into costumes for Hallowe'en (or anything else it seems). I spent many years getting kids ready for trick or treat, they always changed their minds forty times before the big day so it was a scramble to put a costume together that they would approve of. I really liked it when there was some party the week before Hallowe'en so the crunch wouldn't be on as I was lighting pumpkiins and hanging skeletons, but I always made them. I kind of felt sorry for the kids who showed up in costumes fromt he grocery store. There were a few 'missed opportunities', like the year the kids went out as robots- boxes with a cut out front with a transluscent gel taped inside and a lit flashlight around their necks, lots of knobs and dials glued to the front, as well as two very creative tinfoil hats. Well my big mouth neighbor asked them if they were refrigerators and sent them both crying back home.

Or the year Mandy started out as a mummy with about thirty yards of ripped muslin wrapping her from head to toe. She did this one herself and got it so tight that she couldn't walk or carry a sack, back home she re-did it, back out it was so loose that she started loosing coils of muslin until she had it all in the treat sack and ended up back home again for a rer-vamp. We had a dress-up box so we made her into a piss poor version of Queen Elizabeth, with little purse and dumb hat, and off she went on try #3. Most of the years that the younger-boy-child was in residence he and twelve friends congregated in our bathroom makeing each other bloody and disgusting. I caught them smuggling out my kitchen knives one year and called a halt to the plan, but every year was hatchets and machetes and severed limbs and blood, without fail.

One year Mandy was a fried egg with two huge cardboard bacons- that costume got borrowed and used by many people before it finally met it's end- it was sized so adults could wear it too and it arttended many more parties than I ever did. Another year was the duck costume- I had a pile of old sheer curtains so cut them in 8-10" strips and doubled them up before spiraling them around a pillowcase. When they were attached I took the scissors to the sheers and made feathers ...hundreds and hundreds of feathers. This one too saw much duty, and I finally threw it out after my niece had a few years in it.

But I digress (so what else is new?) I stumbled on a great costume- that is IF I was into buying costumes, a big shark that fits over one's whole body with head and shoulder protruding. I would stick a picture up but Blogger isn't doing that today apparently so I'll come back later. Woo hoo- I snuck a photo download thru! Only took me 2 days!

Another hit is a mullet wig, available in at least 5 colors and lengths that I came across- and I only checked out 1,000 pictures, with still 4,000 to go. But I got bored. This is my favorite. For female wigs there was an afro that probably wouldn't get through a standard doorway.

Then, many many variations on the French maid thang, and amazingly most available in 'plus sizes'. Now please, tell me, what self respecting plus sizer would get herself up as a Viking?
Or an elf? Or a maid? Or a nurse? I think all these costumes were the same except for color and accoutrements- AND all available up to a 24, and we are not talking waist!

They really need Clinton and Stacy's three way mirrors-of-truth.

Babies were very cute- a tootsie roll, a peapod, a loaf of wonder bread, a hot dog- things that could be fashioned out of a bunting shape, and my favorite toddlers were these two little Star War escapees.

But tell me this, what toddler knows what (or who) Yoda is (or was)? Why would a parent pick a costume that was something popular 30 years ago? Why would an adult wear an Richard Nixon mask? Why would someone choose the 'blond ho wig', unless being a ho is now more socially acceptable? BTW, all the wig models looked like Joan Collins- where were the Joan Collins costumes? Oh? She's too old? This generation doesn't know about 'Dynasty'? How appropriate- because *I* don't know about 'Dynasty' either. How come there are no good current kid costumes for sale? Maybe all the moms are making them again...Be still my heart.

Now, for the Jesus paragraph: There were some really ratty costumes for that persuasion- you could be Jesus in any ethnicity, any level of tidiness, and any hair color, as long as bushy was your thing. There were also several varieties of crowns- this in particular being my favorite-
probably because it looks more like a crown of wienies. (Or is that 'i before e except...yada yada ...or sometimes w' rule in effect here?)

I think I will go as the log lady on 'Twin Peaks' again, just because I have those clothes and don't have to break my long standing bias against buying costume stuff.