Didn’t see any T+T’ers, being at a concert, but two of the bands dressed up for their shows! One of them (Mae) dressed as the Beatles and their first song was a cover of Come Together, so ppl were wondering if all their songs were gonna be Beatles covers (they weren’t, but the cover was one of the best Beatles covers I’ve heard.)
My critique: Motion City Soundtrack came on entirely dressed as Batman characters. The costumes were great, but this was the first time I had heard or seen the band (I came to see Anberlin,) so if I ever hear them again I won’t be able to get the image of the lead singer in a full-on Batman outfit out of my mind! Damn you, MCS for being good enough to want to get your albums but not good enough to trump the Batman imagery.
Our neighborhood’s pretty empty, we had just 3 groups of kids at our door and two of them were our next-door neighbors and their friends. But all of them managed to be something. The youngest was Harry Potter and his older siblings put on makeup and props whose intent was unclear, though the effort was tangible. They’re nice kids, I gave them handfuls of pb cups.
My 3-yr-old twins were great about doing their own knocking, saying “Trick or treat” and “Thank you!” My son (Spiderman) got tired or bored after just 5 houses so we walked him back home. My daughter (the fairy princess) was a trooper, though, and kept on going. In heels! She has a technique – as I stood there chatting with our various neighbors, she very daintily picked up one piece of candy after another and deposited them in her bag. The kid’s got an impressive stash.
I’ve got one critique of a homeowner to add. The people down the street have a VERY long, VERY steep driveway. It’s gotta be a 45 degree angle. But their light was on and bright so we trudged alllll the way up to their door as full darkness fell. And for our pains were rewarded with one itty chocolate that might weigh an ounce. He had a whole bowl full of them and only gave my children one apiece. Cheapskate.
We live right near a middle school and an elementary school is not much further down the road, so we’ve got a reasonable amount of kids living nearby. The little kids (6 and under) were all dressed up, even if it was just a “ghost” sheet deal. As they approached middle school age, though, it appears that the boys forgot that dressing like a “skater” or a “preppy” doesn’t count and most of the girls were dressed like go-go dancers at the bar. Seriously, when did kids get so lazy with Halloween? Our neighbor’s daughter did a reasonably good job on her costume, which was a “sad emo kid” complete with drawn-on cutting. I laughed when I figured it out, and gave her tips on making it more gory next year.
We did give out candy to the slackers, but because Acid Lamp was all decked out in his big scary costume, they got a good scare before they got candy. I wasn’t dressed up, but I was the decoy.
Heheheheheh. The closest I ever got to being a “princess” when I was a kidlet while ToT’ing was Snow White. My mom still has the costume she made for me; it’s adorable.
Actually our batch wasn’t too bad. We had a lot of ninjas for some reason, and a few costumes were pretty uninspired and in a couple of cases I could tell the kid was dressed as SOMETHING, I just couldn’t tell what.
But a lot of them were pretty decent and we didn’t have any older kids demanding treats without a costume at all.
We had quite a few ninjas, too - a few mostly in red, but more in black. A sprinkling of Jack Sparrows, but none with eyeliner. Chainsaw killers, wizards, witches, fairy princesses and vampires were the other most-popular costumes. We had more than a hundred kids come TOT’ing, and even that was an off-night for us (the weather was quite pleasant here, too).
I’ve gone to a “no costume, no candy” rule for surly teenagers, which I say pleasantly but firmly, but it was hardly necessary last night.
We have three boys. Our eldest was dressed in his Harry Potter robes and Gryffindor necktie, with wand and lightning-bolt scar; it was his first night out with his friends and no grownup along (he turns 11 next week), which gave his mom and me some trepidation, but all was well. Our second son, 8, was wearing a homemade Lego costume: a cardboard box with six picnic soupbowls glued to the front, all spraypainted blue, with a little Lego logo stuck on the front. It was a hit. Our youngest, 4, wore his favorite giraffe costume, and was, as ever, adorable.
Before the TOT’ing began, we had chili and cornbread with a few dozen neighbors out on the grassy lawn of the church which is the centerpiece of the neighborhood. That’s become something of a tradition.
Well, it wasn’t just pajamas. He also had a cravat, slippers, and his hair had been turned white. So at least he made SOME effort, and I could tell who he was without asking him why he was just dressed in PJs.
Not at our house, but I saw these as I drove through downtown Lexington, Mass. on my way home last night –
Lots and Lots of toddlers dressed in full-body furry animal suits. Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! And puppies and kitties and the like. I don’t remember seeing such a concentration of these before.
Is this some new upscale trend? 'cause I didn’t see them anywhere else.
Only had three this year, all in off-the-rack Wal-Mart costumes.
I did, however, see two grownups yesterday in bad costumes: evidently the librarians down at the Decatur Public Library were allowed to dress up, and there was a guy with nothing but a miner’s light on his head. He was a…Cave Man. Get it? Get it?
Nobody did, which was why he had to explain it to every single person he met.
And one of the other librarians had put on an orange t-shirt, stuffed the front and back with a couple of wadded-up bedsheets, belted the whole thing around her waist, and announced that she was the Great Pumpkin. I mean, c’mon, you’ve got all year to get ready for this–just throwing on your Illini shirt stuffed with pillowcases doesn’t count as a costume.
OTOH, one of the Little Old Lady librarians showed up in a Bride of Frankenstein costume that was to die for, two-foot tall wig, face paint, gown, the whole nine yards.
And my favorite checkout lady, the rather dour grandma, I thought at first had filed a nolo participare, but as she pushed my stack of books over to me, I saw that she had unbent far enough to have applied a wide swath of dark purple eyeshadow under her hornrimmed schoolteacher glasses, and a bit of purple hair paint on her cornrows. Go you!
Not a harsh critique, per se, but I helped out at my preschooler’s Halloween party on Tuesday. Her (just about middle aged) teacher was dressed as Little Red Ridinghood, complete with short skirt and almost thigh high boots.
I tried to keep my eyebrow from raising. It wasn’t inappropriate, but it certainly wasn’t what I’d expect from someone spending the morning with 3yr olds.
I gave candy to even the slacker teenagers that showed up last night. Our street isn’t the easiest to get to, so I figured they deserved a few pieces for at least making the treck.
Those are pretty much the very few options we toddler parents have for our kids (especially those of us with boys) if we don’t sew (at least not clothing), and we aren’t incredibly creative in terms of costuming.
My 14 month old was a skunk from Target. He was a damn cute skunk, too :D.
In my building, only the dogs do trick-or-treat (with their people of course).
This is because we seriously lack children. We have, like, three between the ages of 3 and 10. New Yorkers, old folks, hey whatya gonna do.
but one of the dogs’ owners is HAWT.
This year I was a test pilot. Every other male seems to have been a priest (we’re a heavily Catholic area), and every other female donned black stockings and, uh, something else I didn’t notice.
We only had two TOTers. One small fairy-type costume, one kitty cat costume. We joked about how we had enough cats in our house, and she hesitated and then very sweetly and earnestly said, “I’m not a real cat.” I cracked up laughing.
I didn’t get any, but someone on another board I am on said she had two teenagers dressed as Hitler. Actually, they weren’t even dressed as Hitler - they just had on tank tops that said Hitler #1 and Hitler #2. She didn’t give them any candy.
Most of the costumes were meh, this year. I really didn’t see anything particularly original or well done. I did give candy to the few un-costumed teenage slackers, mostly because I wanted to give away ALL of the candy this year. (**BobPi **and I are trying to lose weight.)
My cutest TOT-er was a barely three-year old fairy princess. Just before I opened the door, I heard her father giving instructions: “Say ‘trick-or-treat’ when she opens the door.’”
I opened the door. The little princess said “Trick-or-treat when she opens the door.”
We mostly had Spider-men and princesses and hockey-masked t-shirt wearers. We had quite a few in strollers, but almost always tagging along with older siblings. Mom can’t just ditch the toddler at home while she takes the four-year-old around.
My absolute favorite was the Tiny Ninja. He was maybe 18 months old, barely old enough to walk all the way up our driveway, but he was wearing a little ninja suit and holding a little foam throwing star. He couldn’t pronounce “trick or treat” very well, but he did try. Mostly he was distracted by the lit-up jack o’lantern in our window. He loved it. His mom told me he was thrilled by a nearby house that had gone all-out with decorations – skeletons crawling out of graves on the lawn, ghosts in the trees, etc. He wasn’t scared, he just thought they were great. That kid’s going to turn out awesome.
I passed out candy at the fire station, and we had a couple bazillion TOTers. Pirates, fairies, witches, and Spiderman were all popular. Most were adorable, with the cuteness being inversely proportional to age.
Funny spot: Caucasian 5 y.o. Spiderman sees a black 5 y.o Spiderman, and says very loudly, “You’re a BLACK Spiderman!!!”
The one I want to rip on was a tween wearing a suit, and looking good in it.
“Who are you?”
“Jimmy Hoffa.”
:dubious: "Who was Jimmy Hoffa?
:eek: “I dunno…”
I gave him candy anyway.
If you’re going to pick someone like Jimmy Hoffa, do a little research. The guy was a thug, and could not look good in a suit to save his life. He disapeared under mysterious circumstances, with lots of rumors of his fate just begging for a sarcastic outfit. These costumes might be:
a goalpost hat
dressing like a block of concrete
concrete shoes
a rumpled suit and a lot of bullet holes
carrying a pillow and blanket with pictures of several kinds of fish on them
