Halloween: 5 Years in Review

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I absolutely love thinking of creative costumes even though I usually get very stressed out -- thinking of a memorable costume is a lot of pressure! It's always a blast being out in costume and I really enjoy seeing what others came up with. Also there's a lot of candy involved, which helps push this holiday to the top of the list.

I'm quite proud of my last five costumes (I also only have digital photos of the last 5 years) so I thought I'd share some of my previous masterpieces.

Halloween 2006: Snakes on a Plane

This movie had come out that year. I was stumped for a costume until I was at the costume shop and saw flight attendant costumes. Then it hit me. So we wore flight attendant costumes and I sewed different size plastic snakes all over our outfits. Look closely, the snakes are a little easier to see on Kirk's outfit.

Halloween 2007: Bikers

I had been holding onto this idea for a while and in 2007 it came to fruition. Everyone knows that Super Troopers is one of my favorite movies. There is a hilarious scene where Foster and Ursula meet up for dinner in disguise since they are secretly dating. Ursula had told Foster to come as bikers. Ursula is decked out in biker chick gear: black, leather, big teased hair. When Foster walks in, he is dressed as a cyclist and says "Ohhhh biker. I'm an idiot." So here are Kirk and I as bikers:

Halloween 2008: Lion Tamer

Definitely not my most creative costume ever but it is really cute. The stuffed animal lion accessory helped take the costume to the next level. I did a lot of taming that night. Mostly I would throw the lion on the ground, whip him, and yell "Be tame!" at him. However, I also tamed my roommate's cat, a yellow lab, and several other animals.



Taming a ferocious lion.



Halloween 2009: Space Chimp

This is the first Halloween that Shaun and I were together. Shaun had been an astronaut every Halloween in recent history and was planning to be an astronaut again. I asked a bunch of friends what I could be that would go with an astronaut. Surprisingly, a very common answer was 'monkey.' I guess because they send cute little chimps into space. I bought a child's monkey costume from target and transformed it into my space chimp costume.

Halloween 2010: Moby Dick

Shaun really likes nautical things and (not so) secretly wishes he was a sea captain. While we were brainstorming costume ideas, I jokingly said we should be Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. And that was the end of brainstorming; Shaun was dead-set on that idea. We picked up most of Shaun's outfit from thrift stores. It's hard to see in the pic, but he also painted brown tights to look like wood for his peg leg. I wore all white, sewed myself a little whale tale, and found some whale socks because obviously whales wear whale socks. The part that put this costume into a league all its own is the fully functioning blowhole. I used a trick flower that clowns have that sprays water, removed the flower part, ran the tube up my arm and and up my back so that it came out right at my neck. Then when someone asked me what I was, I could spray them and say "I'm a whale!!" I did get a few dirty looks from the bar staff for spraying water a bunch of times. Oh well, totally worth it.

 

Moby Dick and Captain Ahab

 

Getting harpooned







It's going to be extremely hard to top these masterpieces next year...