Decorating for the Holidays...

In my bleary eyed stupor of the morning I was reading an article in my local newspaper - and the writer of said article actually had the audacity to call Halloween "pointless"...  Now yes, I can see her point that all other holidays - regardless of their current commercialism - have some underlying religious or memorial purpose.  I get that - but I still enjoy the Halloween preparations!  

You see, I enjoy making my kids' costumes...  I am a self professed "Halloween Seamstress".  To use this title for yourself you must first understand a few things:

The kids wear the costume once... "durability" is optional

It is dark when trick-or-treating... straight seams are wasted

In most areas of the country, it is cold Halloween night - and a coat covers a lot of mistakes

The costume is GOING to get dirty...  don't put lots of effort into it!

Oh, and the fact that I barely use my sewing machine the rest of the year...  Practice makes perfect - but since we're not going for perfection - Ta-dah... "Halloween Seamstress Extraordinaire"

So there's the 40 minute Tinkerbell- made from my hubby's old t-shirt (a gift, he didn't BUY something that color).  And the borrowed Dorothy, because my neighbor doesn't deserve the Halloween Seamstress Title and her costume has survived a few years.  The Classy Vampire(minus the makeup job), because after reading Twilight I just can't envision vampires not dressed nicely.  (and we're going to pretend that the blurriness of the photo is all about my kids' privacy and has nothing to do with my lack of photography skills or my sons lack of ability to Hold Still For A Second!) The Roadkill... actually 2 pictures of that because you just had to see a close-up of the fly buzzing around the skunk.  And T - sporting his cousin's name-tag...  I'm sure if he wears this costume to school it will be the name of one of his friends instead.   I have earned my title this year for sure!

As a general rule, October 1st has my kids rummaging through the boxes of decorations looking for the wooden skeleton and the brick Frankenstein - and then arguing about where best to display these creepy fellows.  As loyal blog readers will know, that particular date was a tad busy this year and we have yet to decorate our home... even the "coffin" which used to be a guitar box is still downstairs in the holiday closet.  I just can't bring myself to go all out for such a short time - I'm thinking I will just go straight for the wooden turkey and save myself a lot of effort.  Hey, at least my blog is all "Halloween-y" (yes I'm aware that isn't a word... and even if it were we'd all think it was a funny sounding one at best)

So - Early though it may be... aside from the Extreme Candy Consumption - I'm done with Halloween... and no hate-comments please, it's not like we're skipping Christmas!