The Crayon Revelation

11 Oct 2008 3 Comments

by megan in Seasonal Tags: , , , , ,

I lied.

I lied not out of malice, but out of the non-researched ignorance of a foggy, twenty year-old memory.  It happens to all of us from time to time, and when it happens to me, I inevitably feel a profound sense of shame and regret.  So, few and gentle readers, I do apologize for misleading you.

It turns out that The Crayon was not, in fact, made from a piece of poster board and construction paper.  It was actually a relatively large swatch of red cloth, on which was sewn with loving hands, in black cloth, the classic border we so often see around a crayon.

This revelation was made earlier this afternoon when my mother and I stopped for a milkshake at the local diner.  The topic of Halloween costumes came up, and, after lamenting the lack of imagination in costume-making these days, I inquired about the process of making The Crayon.

“Do you want it?  It’s up in the attic,” she said.

“Do I?  You bet your boots, I do!” came my calm and dignified reply as I jumped out of my seat and nearly spilled my milkshake in my lap.

I am at my parents’ house for the weekend, visiting for my brother’s birthday, so I only had to wait a short while before beholding the second best Halloween costume of my youth.  After scaling the treacherous suggestion of a ladder to the attic, we found a small clothes rack, encased in a zipped plastic cover.  Within its protective shield hung the happiest days of my brother’s and my trick-or-treating years: The Medieval Princess, The Spider, The Clown, The Monk, Batman, Raggedy Ann (or Andy), Merryweather (the blue fairy from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty), The Snow Princess, and The Crayon.

With the exception of The Clown (which was made for my mother by a neighbor when she was a child), each and every one of those costumes was sewn by hand.  I am so impressed with her skill; the quality of these costumes has enabled them to last almost two decades.  Perhaps that’s why she didn’t make The Crayon out of cheap poster board and construction paper.  After all, that’s why The Firefly didn’t last; paper doesn’t hold up quite like cloth.

I have the utmost respect for a good seamstress, and am infinitely jealous of that talent, which seems to elude me.  Perhaps one of these days I will purchase a sewing machine and hone that skill so that I might be prepared for the day when I need to sew a costume myself.

If and when I have children, they will wear The Crayon when they are old enough to go trick-or-treating.  They will have no choice about it.  It’s too cute not to wear.  Fortunately, my mother has agreed to keep it safe in her attic until I have an attic of my own, which will hopefully be before I conceive the aforementioned twinkles in my eye.

On Halloween costumes

04 Oct 2008 1 Comment

by megan in Childlike, Photos, Seasonal Tags: , , ,

At the onset of October, I like to survey my students to find out what the kids are dressing as for Halloween these days.  Bearing in mind that most of the students I’ve had a chance to ask so far are under eight years old and girls, it seems that the trend for 2008 is “cute:” bunnies, snowflakes, kittens, princesses.  Of course, my older students are getting a little more creative: Uncle Sam, a nurse, that guy from Braveheart.

The topic of Halloween costumes came up at the end of one of my high-schooler’s lessons earlier this week.  Her parents, born and raised in Ireland, told me that when they were children, no one dressed up as anything “cute.”  The point of Halloween, they said, was not necessarily to get candy, but to scare the crap out of your friends and neighbors.  Therefore, costumes were always “evil:” devils, black cats, goblins, witches.

Personally, I’ve dabbled with costumes from each extreme, from Raggedy Ann to a penultimately evil Circus Clown.  No matter what I dressed as, though, I have never, never, NEVER purchased a costume from a store.  The early placement aside, it makes me sick to see rows of prefabricated costumes for children and adults alike lining the aisles of Target at Labor Day.  To me, the point of this holiday is to make your costume from as many “found” materials as possible, not to look identical to every other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in your classroom.

Making one’s own costumes needs be neither expensive nor elaborate.  All that is required is a little creativity.  I think the most elaborate costume my mother ever made was The Firefly, undeniably the coolest Halloween costume ever.  But other equally creative costumes were donned for trick-or-treating, all handmade by a lovingly crafty mother.

That same student whose Irish parents literally raised Hell on Halloween, knew exactly what I’m talking about.  Being a redheaded, freckled kid, she was a perfect candidate for dressing up as Pippi Longstockings, simply placing pipe cleaners betwixt her braided pigtails.

One year, I was the Indian (or Native American, if you want to get PC about it), having outgrown The Crayon.  The only things my mother needed to purchase were the headband and belt (probably found at a thrift store), a bit of face paint, and a piece of leather cloth (probably not very expensive, since the waistline of a seven year-old isn’t very large).  The wig was just a skein of black yarn, which we had lying around the house amongst several others.  Despite the stylish chevrons on my cheeks, though, I think I preferred The Crayon.

I have a feeling that the photo on the right was not taken on Halloween night, but on the day we were allowed to wear our costumes to school.  I say this because there is a photo floating around somewhere in my parents’ house of me as The Crayon, complete with a red turtleneck and face paint.

The Crayon is one of the most brilliantly simple costumes I can think of, most likely costing under $5.  The only required materials were a sheet of poster board, some face paint and some construction paper (which was probably lying around in a house of kids who liked to draw).  The tubular body was just a sheet of poster board with arms holes – how simple can you get?  The detail in black construction paper around the ends is my favorite part; not difficult to cut out or glue on, but it adds a special quality to the costume that shows that someone cared enough to do it.

It seems silly to me to purchase a Halloween costume, knowing full well that a child will outgrow it before next year, and that that cartoon character will be out of style in a few months.  Why spend money on something that cannot be renewed?  I was able to use that Indian belt as a headband years later when I decided to be a hippie (a costume for which I bought nothing, since I could then fit into my mother’s clothes from high school).

I don’t expect to see many trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood this year, but I have decided that those who come dressed in something creatively put together from found objects will get full-sized candy bars, rather than the Fun Sized candy, which is reserved for plastic clones of television shows.

Incidentally, I would like to know why they call a piece of candy that is a quarter of the size of a normal candy bar “fun-sized.”  There is nothing fun about less candy.  They should rename Fun Sized candy Snack Sized, and reserve the title of Fun Sized for the extra large candy bars, replacing King Sized.

Memories of butts a-glow

16 Oct 2006 2 Comments

by megan in Photos, Seasonal Tags: , , ,

NOTE: This post was inspired by a response to an email I sent my mother. Amused by a site shown to me, I told my mother that our dog should be a Beedog this Halloween. Her response was simple and direct: an attached photograph with a caption reading “Beemeg.”

As Halloween approaches, I’ve begun to survey my students about what types of costumes they will don for that special night. Forty-three students later, I am convinced that, for the most part, neither parents nor children have any imagination whatsoever. Most told me that they would be “going shopping” to “find” their costumes over the next few days, most of which would probably consist of a plastic mask to transform them into their favorite cartoon character. The result of that sort of costuming is about twenty children who all want to be Shrek. Naturally, I was quite taken aback. When I was their age, we would never dream of shopping for a costume; rather, we would design our own! Once I was old enough to choose for myself, I remember spending months before Halloween deciding on my costume, planning each detail carefully and then giving the blueprints to my mother to sew and construct. Of course, none of my costumes could hold a candle to those designed by my mother.

The firefly costume was one of my mother’s more brilliant creations. It was so spectacular that both my brother (pictured, right) and I wanted one. The best part was the working, glowing butt. If you look closely, you may be able to see a yellow protrusion extending from our posteriors. Hidden beneath several layers of tissue paper was a carefully re-bent wire hanger fashioned into an open “cage” with hanging attachments that draped over our shoulders. In the center of this exoskeleton was a holster, also fashioned from wire hangers, in which was carried a regular, D-sized-battery-powered flashlight. When the flashlight was turned on, our butts shone with a yellow glow that would spark jealousy in any ordinary firefly.

The costume was not only stylish, but functional, as well, which made my mother’s creation even more of a stroke of genius. With her children layered in black sweatshirts, sweatpants and winter hats, they wouldn’t get too cold. The yellow on their chests and reflective antennae made them visible to passing vehicles. And with those butts a-glow, she could watch their movements around the neighborhood from the comfort of home.

Although we wore those costumes about twenty years ago, I can almost feel the sensations of being a firefly for a night. The sweats and the hat were literally sweaty, the headband for the antennae was too tight, the paint on my face itched like mad and the glowing cage weighed me down like a ton of bricks. (Keep in mind that while that cage was only about the size of an average bathroom sink, I was only about five years old, so it was quite formidable.) As uncomfortable as we were, though, it didn’t matter, because we were fireflies, and we had the best costumes in the world that night, all because of our glowing butts.