Here wolfie, wolfie, wolfie!

Yesterday, my wife and I were sitting in front of the television, having dinner. A news bulletin came on about how shops here in Ireland are gearing up for Halloween. I made a casual remark to my wife along the lines of "phew, thank God we don't have to worry about all that nonsense anymore". In fact, I think I went on to say something like "let's turn out the lights, lock the door and pretend we're not home", thus negating the need for us to have treats for all of the brats who would dare to disturb my evening.

My wife, ever patient woman that she is, quietly reminded me that 'in the day', i.e. when our own two children were those very brats, I loved the creative side of Halloween.

And she was right. One of the joys of having children, is the opportunities they offer us parents to re-live the wonder and joy of our own childhoods. I had completely forgotten the enjoyment I got out of making costumes for my kids.

Starting Small

Kids are easily pleased, and in the early days I took the lazy option and slapped on a little face paint and some fake teeth. As you can see in the picture above, I'm not the most accomplished make-up artist. But, who cares? The kids loved it and Dad (that's me), proudly sent them off to gather their treats.

Keeping up with the Jones

Unfortunately for me, I started to compare my kids' costumes with those of their friends and our neighbors, and the little dab of face-paint was simply not going cut the mustard anymore.

What do you think of the Pirate, better right? Face-paint replaced with a whole lot of grimy dirt (I can't actually remember what I used for the smudgy face). And a home-made set of pirate cloths.

The only fly in the ointment with this costume, was the bought, plastic sword. Surely I could have done better by making the sword myself?

And here's another one where I had to compromise:

My daughter insisted on wearing her favorite witch dress, and wouldn't let me make one for her. Sigh! You've got to pick your battles, right?

Time to Up the Ante

It was time to go full home-made. No more store-bought props. My son wanted something 'really cool' to show off to his friends.

I used to be into D.I.Y. (like most blokes I reckon). So, here's my next costume attempt (please forgive the quality of the image, it's really old):

My son is the middle 'D.I.Y. Accident' flanked by his two cousins (and no, that's not a real cigarette).

The costume went down a storm around the neighborhood, with the result that he was given more treats than his cousins! A win for him!

For anyone interested, he had a six-inch nail embedded in his eye, and a rotary saw blade sticking out of his stomach (all made from cardboard and glue I hasten to add!).

Recycling is good

By the way, I'm not averse to a little re-use of previous costumes. The witch's hat my daughter is wearing above, started life as a Harry Potter wizard's hat for my son.

My son's D.I.Y. Accident was borrowed by various friends for a couple of years following it's inaugural use, until it disintegrated!

I once made a costume for myself, as an adult, for use in a fancy-dress party/competition (I'm not going to describe it in any detail as it was somewhat 'adult' in nature). I won the competition!

I gave the costume to a friend for another competition, and he won that one!

So, yes, recycling is always a good idea.

My Pièce de Résistance

My costume making time came to an end eventually. My son had one year left at primary school and so would soon be 'too cool' to wear costumes for Halloween, and I wanted him to finish with a flourish. So I made both my son and daughter a full-body wolf costume:

The heads were molded to fit their faces perfectly, and were covered in genuine sheep skin (I think the smell of lanolin must have been a little over-powering). They were extremely warm to wear, which was actually an added bonus as Halloween is normally an extremely cold time of the year.

My two kids were the talk of the neighborhood and their school. They wore their wolf costumes at every opportunity.

And in the spirit of 'recycling-is-good', we donated the costumes to the their primary school. I think they survived for several years, and it was not unusual to see the costumes being worn by other kids in the school.

You might ask the question, why wolves? Well, I've always loved animals, and I've had a particular fascination with dogs and their ancestors. And, did I not mention it? When my kids were really small, I turned our front door into an enormous wolf's head:

Any little ghoul who dared to step into the mouth (which had scary music and sounds playing) deserved a good handful of treats.

So, there you have it. A few of my creations from the past.

I am probably best advised not to make my house into the scariest Trick or Treat destination on our road again, largely because my own kids have grown up and moved on. However, I am now looking forward with excitement and anticipation to that time (probably a few years from now) when I can unleash my inner costume designer once again.

Bring on the Grand Kids!