Out of the Closet

I love Halloween. Let me repeat that. I love Halloween!!! What's not to love? There's the candy and the dressing up in costumes and parties and the decorations. And then there's that mystical proposition that the boundaries separating the domain of the living and the domain of the dead become thin and diffuse allowing the crossing over from one to the other. I didn't buy candy until this last Saturday which I believe demonstrates considerable will power for me. Alright, I know I caved and bought the monstrous (get it? monstrous!) size bag of Tootsie Pops instead of the sensible smaller bag. But it was a matter of economics. I am by nature a bargain shopper and the big bag worked out to eight cents per pop while the smaller bag worked out to twelve cents per pop. Now that I have fully rationalized that, while enjoying a grape one as I type, on to other matters. Decorating. Halloween decorations are just plain fun. Pumpkins and witches and black cats and haunted houses and lit-up spooky little trees adorned with bats and ghosts! Stop me before I get to my favorite part, the costumes! Oops! Not quick enough! In this house we do not, I repeat, DO NOT purchase any old tacky costume-in-a-bag! We have a strict code of creating our costumes conceived and planned in our own evil little minds! I am almost embarrassed to admit that I have a closet full of costumes. Almost being the key word. My friend Sandy says that I have more clothes in my costume closet than she has in her regular clothes closet. I haven't done an actual count but I'm certain she's exaggerating. Over the years I have created a number of pretty darned cool costumes (and not just for Halloween, how could I limit myself to dressing up just once a year?) for the entire family. I have classics like the French Maid, various hippie outfits, scarecrow, witch, Peter Pan, Viking, pirate, and totes of odd accessories and pieces of clothing for free-form dressing up. Several years ago I whipped up the most excellent devil costumes for my husband and myself. Once we were in them including red make-up, capes, and pointy tails, we were truly unrecognizable. We partied in the bars downtown completely incognito. We shot a couple of games of pool with people we knew and they didn't know it was us! I love Halloween! The very best non-Halloween dressing up that I participated in had to be the girls' weekend when we rented a houseboat. We were quite a sight, all ten of us, out on the docks of the marina in what we called our bad, bad, bad prom and bridesmaid dresses. A van from the fancy downtown hotel came to pick us up and we took the town by storm. The St. James Hotel in Red Wing, Minnesota has a four star restaurant and is an absolutely beautiful restored historic building filled with antiques and quiet, well-behaved patrons. We were not. Ten middle-aged women in tacky dresses, gloves and hats who are out of town, away from their kids and husbands and have a designated driver are not inclined toward genteel behavior. We, in other words, had a very good time as well as a wonderful meal. There's something about donning a costume that makes even the most quiet and shy among us feel at least a little taken out of themselves. Even reserved people might do a thing or two they otherwise would not. The costume gives you permission! You don't quite look like your normal self so why act like your normal self? Let's have some fun! And I promise to limit myself to one Tootsie pop per day. Good thing I bought the big bag, at this rate there should be a few left in the bowl when the trick-or-treaters show up.