The Way I View “Halloween”

As with most holidays, Halloween in our house is full of traditions… The month starts out with a trip to JoAnn Fabrics to pick out a pattern for Emily’s costume, which she insists I make each year. This year I was lucky and she picked an easy one—the accessories were crucial and mostly covered up the simple dress! In fact, I have to publicly thank Vicki, who I am certain worked harder restringing pearls to make a super long, glorious strand than I did on the entire costume. (The pearls we found at the costume shop were so fake and ugly that Vicki took it upon herself to make Emily the prettiest strand ever! She even made an adorable bracelet to match! We are more grateful than we can express…) For me, the make-up was the hardest part—applying gorgeous make-up is not a strength I can claim. And we never did manage to find great shoes…

Tom’s contribution to our Halloween tradition is his ingenious pumpkins. They usually center on some vitally important event that occurred in our family over the year, so I wanted him to make a Canon 5D Mark III (was there anything more important than that this year?! ;-P). Em voted for memorializing her new iMac. But ultimately, Emily came up with the idea of her and Daddy doing Hunger Games pumpkins. Tom taught her his “shaving” technique so she could make a really cool mockingjay, and he created a brilliant Effie Trinket. It was perfect for them since Tom rarely reads actual books, but she convinced him to read the Hunger Games this year, and in fact they even spent Father’s Day together seeing the movie. (I, as usual, went for the easiest, quickest pattern I could find…)

And my favorite part of the Halloween? My payback for making her costume every year: I get a photo shoot. She did a biography on Audrey Hepburn last year and absolutely loves her, so I asked her to channel her inner Audrey, and this is what we got. It’s a little disconcerting that she can look so grown up, but then we take off the make-up and fancy clothes and I have my sweet little girl back, so I’m a happy Mama!

Next please continue our little blog circle on to the fabulously talented Leah Cook with her take on “Halloween”!