So as I mentioned yesterday, we went costume shopping. This is not a common occurence for us. We’re usually pretty DIY when it comes to this sort of thing. My mother-in-law sews. Well. And she’s made most of the kid’s costumes in the past.
Baby girl says she wants to be a princess,
et voila, she has a perfect replica of Sleeping Beauty’s gown.
And when one of the kids picked out something Grandma couldn’t sew,
in stepped Dad, with tubing and metal and a freaking battery pack.
But this year, it just didn’t come together. So we bought costumes. The girl will be a flower, the boy will be a ninja. Done and done.
As we were shopping, though, some things occurred to me. One good, two not so good. And so, I will deliver them as employers are taught to deliver evaluations to employees. Only theirs goes compliment – complaint – compliment, and mine, well, doesn’t.
1. If you are going to sell costumes in a northern climate, adjustments need to be made. Because while the sizing might work in, say, Florida, where weather will never be a factor in trick-or-treating, here in Western Canada? You don’t pick out a costume without visualizing a snowsuit under it. Not that it’s guaranteed to be snowing on Halloween, but it is a very real (and somewhat terrifying) possibility. Henceforth, I’d like to see this sort of thing on the package:
“Size: 7
Unless you’re from Canada and expect this to fit over skidoo pants, then it’s a: 4”
There, that shouldn’t be any trouble, right?
2. Kudos to you, costume manufacturers! The last time I looked for costumes, I was downright disheartened to see that as a girl of ample proportions, I was barred from getting my Once-A-Year-Skank on. French maid costumes, slutty witches, morally questionable kittens were all the dominion of skinny chicks. But now, if I want to follow the Yellow Brick Road AND show a whole lotta upper thigh,
I can do that. Right up to a 4X, if I so desire. So pass the ribs, momma’s got some trick or treatin’ (wink) to do.
3. I understand that kids today are maturing at a faster rate. I really do get that. But this:
does NOT need to be available in a size 4. Ever. Stop it.
(Full disclosure: It might not freak me out so much, but I’m pretty sure I saw that exact same get up on a stripper. In a….documentary. )
So there you have my take on the costume shopping experience. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way back to the site with the Dorothy get-up. Because Halloween can last all year-round. (As long as they’re offering free shipping.)
Praying to Darwin 
To be unpopularly honest I don’t get the halloween thing at all. My brain just can’t grasp the concept, BUT…. that said…
That robot costume is absolutely the best ever, bar none..
It’s still sitting in the basement. Owen just silently hoping that The Girl will want to wear it. Or maybe he’s saving it for grandkids. I don’t know.
I love Halloween! Wish I could get my skank on, but alas, the outfits don’t fit me. (My husband breathes a sigh of relief). I’m in Texas and we have to make room under the costumes for turtlenecks too. My little girl loves princess costumes, but she either has to wear a heavy turtleneck underneath (which she hates) or wear a coat over the costume. The latter option is such a waste of money, but I guess you ruin the costume either way.
Honey, those outfits fit EVERYBODY.
i’m looking for a Zombie Skank, in “ample” sized… let me know if you find one…
Will do, chickie.
call me old-fashioned or jealous, but i absolutely HATE that halloween has become the skank holiday. though i can stomach dorothy, who is already in a dress, over this gem i saw in a party city catalog:
http://tinyurl.com/yzmm93p
i mean, come on, what the hell.
I used to feel the same way. But I don’t, now. Not sure what changed. Anywho, the “wizard” costume you linked to? Are we being sold porn cast-offs as Halloween costumes? Because if we are, those things had better have been fricking pasteurized before they’re shipped out.
The wife wanted little rubber snakes to sew onto the lime green sweater to go with her Medusa head so we stopped at the all Halloween store in Yuba City. So far, so good. I saw all of the usual sexy French Maids and kittens, etc., but there was also the sexy baseball player girl and what appeared to be the sexy water meter reader girl. I have decided that Halloween is now officially too sexy for me. I have it easy, I just have to be a stone.
Ed Jovtown
Doesn’t Halloween originate from the Celtic language, translating roughly as “night of sexy career options”?
If I only had a … we’ll go with brain. Have a Happy Halloween!
Tee hee! Happy Halloween to you too, Chris.
I am silently dying right now since I bought my 9 year old that exact leprachaun costume. Without the thigh-highs (She’s wearing regular tights). I honestly didn’t think it was skanky! Well, slutty or not, at $40, thats what she’s wearing.
But yeah, the robot, soooo awesome!
(Really, you don’t think that costume is like, adorable?)
Oy.
Here’s the thing: when we were looking for a costume for The Girl, who is only 3, wears a size 4, well over half the costumes available to her involved a miniskirt and thigh highs. It wasn’t enough to be a fairy/witch/bumblebee, they wanted her to be a SEXY fairy/witch/bumblebee. At 3.
Three and nine are worlds apart, in my mind.
While we were perusing said costumes I saw a young couple with a 3 or 4 year old girl and the Dad said – “hon, help her pick something out.” And she said “I’m trying to but all these costumes are pretty slutty”
It wasn’t meant for my ears but made me giggle just the same.
I will be an ample sized beer garden girl! With the thigh highs and the fluffy thing under the skirt that basically lifts the skirt up until you really aren’t even wearing it!! Can’t wait for the costume party!! I pre-apologize to my honey’s co-workers!!
I want a real drindl. I’m putting that on my bucket list: go to Oktoberfest in Germany and get me a drindl!
I’ve always pictured you as a morally questionable kitten Ginny 😉
Um, thanks?
Nothing beats a slutty Dorothy, though it would be odd if she were with the Cowardly Lion, the whole Lion mounting Dorothy kinda throws me…
Robot costume = exellent
and Xbox Halloween is all about free shit, i dig it cuz the kids get all happy and wired on sugar and then daddy pulls his face off the bong and raids the goodie bag when they’re in bed.
I think Dorothy would go Tin Man. Pneumatics.
I hear you on the skanky costumes for girls! My eight year old, who wears a size six/seven, wanted tp be a black cat. Easy enough, right? Why do they have six/seven cat costumes that are midriff-baring, and come complete with thigh-highs and a collar that says “pussycat”? Ugh. Luckily she wanted no part of any of that and we went black velvet bodysuit and headband and tail. Happy Halloween & thanks for the great reading!
Because there’s plenty of time to be slutty, later on. They’re called “Your 20’s”. And you don’t want to peak too soon.
I just DO NOT understand the whole slutty costume thing… if The Eventual even tries that, I’m dressing her up as a bag of potatoes.
SEXY potatoes, maybe?
I’m going as drunk guy for Halloween… beer-clutching action grip included. Come to think of it, I will also be wearing my costume all year long.
That’s not so much a costume as a mission statement. And I applaud it, sir.
I have two competing opinions of the whole ‘skank Halloween costume’ trend. As an adult male, I’m all for it, but as the father of a 14 year old daughter, I can definitely see a downside. I also have a 19 year old daughter, but she seems less interested in the sexy costume concept.
Last year, the 14 yr old wanted the slutty baseball player outfit, with the top that wasn’t much more than a sports bra. We made her wear a baseball undershirt underneath, which actually looked really good, and cut way down on the sluttiness.
Slutiness is a tricky thing, how your perspective on it changes based on where you’re at in life 😉
Even if the skanky costumes come in plus size you will not see my fat ass in one, eva. Not so much because I have all this modesty but because I don’t want to make children and grown men cry and run screaming from the ghastly sight of my cottage cheese thighs.
Those costumes are adorable (as are the children in them!). Hope you guys have a fun and safe Halloween!
Cottage cheese be damned, wrap it all in spandex and sort it out the next day.
That is a truly awesome robot costume. Stuff like that makes me question my Dad credentials cause I’m just not sure I can pull something like that off. The good news for me is that we don’t really do Halloween down here. Phew.
So the idea of putting on an extra layer of clothes and walking miles for candy in the summer heat doesn’t go over? Weird.
I was flipping through a costume catalogue the other day and I was horrified by the skanky girl costumes and teenage girl costumes. Really? What crazy parent says “Ok, honey, if you want to look like a slutty whore for Halloween, you go right ahead; here’s the money”?
I might actually say that.
It’d be sarcastic as hell, but I’d say that.
Still the best robot costume, ever. (Although another preschool parent is rolling one out Friday morning — I’ll take pictures to see if your title is secure.)
And didn’t someone say that Halloween is the yearly opportunity for women to dress like sluts and men to dress like women? (They did NOT say preschoolers, though. Noted.)
In one of Darrin Hagen’s shows, he does a bit about how Halloween was a time for big, strapping farm boys to go out in drag. And every year, some of them never came back…
We do a Haunted Insane Asylum for the neighborhood every year (for FREE no less, we just take up donations for St. Jude’s) and while wandering the aisle of a local Halloween store we discovered something shocking: a costume of a french maid was available for little girls, and the SAME EXACT COSTUME was also available for women…only the the french maid costume for adults used some choice wording in both the title and description that was not present on the child’s.
Because of our Asylum project I pretty much go as the same thing ever year: a patient. This year I have been relegated to a wheelchair and told I am NOT allowed to get up. Because this year I will be going as a pregnant patient, one who, apparently, will explode if she does anything other than sit, and stare, and occasionally say “boo.” On the bright side, this year I have not had to do hardly any work on the Asylum, where usually I do enough to require a stay in the coma ward after Halloween.
Seriously? Not a pregnant nun? How many times in your life will you get to rock that costume?
Really, they should just come with the snowsuit built right in! And then! The costumey part should detach from the outside so you can go BAM! right into winter wear! See? Two shopping trips in one.
And yeah, I get a little more disturbed every year at the girly costumes. I think the first time I recall raising my eyebrow was when princess Jasmine was the shit. Something about a nine year old belly dancing just doesn’t sit right with me. And I think I may have seen a similar ‘documentary’ 😉
(Except it was on a Thursday…not exactly the A-team on a Thursday…brrrrrr)
Or at 4 in the morning in Las Vegas. Ahem.
I get annoyed at all the slutty cats and slutty witches, but then I have to just shake my head and stop myself and think, “At least I’m not friends with those attention-seeking bitches who are forced to resort to sex to appear interesting.”
And then I realize that sex is all anyone ever finds interesting, and my Carmen Sandiego costume, as well-received and admired by all as it was, is just not going to get me laid.
I talk a good game, but the most I’m capable of is a belt, to give my ghost a waist.
(Carmen Sandiego is a killer costume. That sticky fingered filcher.)