Through some stroke of fate, I was a judge of a neighborhood kids costume contest and though I hardly ever had to weigh tough decisions of winners and losers, I did have the opportunity to see a lot of costumes, one after another.
A lot of ninjas, more witches than princesses, one self-described vampire/devil, one self-described “vampire with a fashion sense” and no lack of Iron Men, Ninja Turtles and Transformers.
It must be fun to be a kid and dress up in superhero costumes with built in muscles and head to toe detail. I remember just using a towel for a cape as a kid.
But then you got the idea of what kind of world we’re living in, with more than one 7 year old or younger dressing as Chuckie or Chuckie’s wife. Should these kids know who Chuckie is? They’d have to be 10 years older to see a Chuckie movie in the theaters.
Zombies were popular, especially for those who use makeup (and old torn clothing) for their costumes. There was one smart political costume: Ted Cruz, with money coming out of his suit and clutching a copy of “Green Eggs and Ham.”
There was a combo Frankenstein character in a Nationals outfit, calling himself Brycenstein. Good one. A couple of pandas. The witch costumes are now super fancy and look like prom dresses. They hardly ever involve pointy hats and nobody is green or ugly.
But I couldn’t get over the little girl no more than 10 in the blood splattered blouse and skirt, who said her costume was “Dead Schoolgirl.”
Now, I used to pride myself on quasi-bad taste costumes dating back to tainted Tylenol bottles to kids in wells. But only at grown up parties. To be a school shooting victim at a neighborhood costume contest, with a spotlight, judges, and microphones? It sort of blew my mind.
It was the first Halloween as empty nesters, which means no candy report, and no candy whatsoever in the house. Warm weather brought tons of kids and early depletion.
It happened near the costume contest as well, and it was pretty heartbreaking to face kids who did nothing but stick out their bags and look up at you hopefully. Will they ever get past this disappointment?
People went out and got more bags of candy — the pinata collection! — but they ran out quickly as well. They were selling giant bags of candy at the stores this year. Also new to the Halloween shelves were things meant to be stuck into pumpkins that would save you the trouble of carving one. I thought maybe enough people would use them on Halloween to make this a big item next year, but I didn’t see anybody using them.
In the days just before the holiday, shelves were pretty empty of anything but pet costumes. Maybe someone could sew a bunch of them together and come up with something. All around those depleted shelves were well stocked, ready to take over, was all the Christmas stuf. Get ready for nonstop holidays for a couple of months.