In our house, Halloween planning begins in the summer. Yes, in July. You see, I am something of a Halloween costume snob. This can rest solely on the shoulders of my mother who used to make all our costumes. Not with tin foil and cardboard- she sewed almost all of them.
Back in the 1980's, it seemed that most store-bought costumes were colorful plastic bags that you wore over your clothes and cheap plastic mask that violated every rule in the "Halloween Safety" filmstrips we were forced to watch in school. They were creepy and ugly and my mother's costumes were much, much better than those. I mean, how many woman can make a Rainbow Bright costume with every stuffed roll on the sleeves and hem? Sure, she invented some new curse words over those rolls but I rocked that costume. Rocked it, baby!
I was raised with some seriously high standards.
Now, I can sew and I have made costumes- a puppy, cow, Little Bear, ladybug and cheerleader. They aren't as good as my mother's but some of them have gotten two or more years of use. Depending on what it is, I will happily make costumes for the kids. (And only curse at my sewing machine, which is currently DEAD but that is another post.)
This summer, I asked Georgie what he wanted to be for Halloween. He grinned and said, "GOC GOC GOC!"
"Goc?"
"Yeah, Tic Toc Croc from Jake and the Neverland Pirates!" Camille chimed in. George grinned and nodded.
"You want to be Tic Toc Croc?" He nodded. "Not Jake?" He shook his head no. "What about Captin Hook? Or Peter Pan?"
"GOC GOC GOC!"
Alright, fine, Tic Toc Croc is it.
I began looking for ideas and a pattern in July. I knew I could do the body; I had a simple animal costume pattern and all I would have to do is add the tail. No worries. I could do that. But the head. Oh, the head. There was no way I could make a non-creepy head for a crocodile costume.I would have to buy it.
As soon as Halloween costumes hit the store, I began looking for a crocodile- any croc!- costume. Wal-Mart had a plethora of pirate and Disney costumes, but not a croc. Target was barren too. Even the Disney store (you would think the DISNEY STORE!!!) didn't carry them. We did find a cute stuffed croc and tried to convince him to be Jake and carry Tic Toc Croc but he said no.
Fine. Way to be difficult, kid,
As a last resort, I took the kids to one of the temporary Halloween stores that spring up in strip malls. The kids eyed the howling black cat, spider webs and Exorsit mechanical doll (life sized, complete with spinning head and vomit) waringly. Visions of being up all night with children suffering from nightmares danced through my head and I drug them past witches and vampires to the (tame, brightly colored and happy) children's section.
Tinkerbelle. Izzy. Jake. Captin Hook. But no frikkin Croc.
Now, I got Joseph's costume and scored some awesome Hufflepuff socks for myself but no Croc. Nothing that even looked like a croc. They even checked their website for me. I had to drag George out of there crying, "Me GOC GOC GOC!"
In case you are wondering, there are no croc patterns to be found in any pattern book. I dragged them to three sewing stores to look. We scared people into never having children but found nothing even remotely like a croc.Mom helped me search the Internet. Amazon and Ebay revealed a few croc costumes but George informed me that he did not like any of them.
A few days later, I dragged up the fall decorations. George dove into the box looking for pumpkins and pulled out his cow costume from last year. He held it up and gleefully said, "Oh! Me MOOOO!"
"You want to be a cow?" He nodded. "Not tic toc croc?"
"No. Me MOOO!" He began to strip down and put on the costume. Okay, great, you moo kiddo. Problem solved!
You think it end here, right? But no. Last week I went to a consignment store to look for dress clothes for the kids. They had their costumes up and what did they have? A CROC Costumes! A big, puffy croc costume for fifteen dollars! I pulled it off the rack and said, "George! Look! You can be tic toc croc!"
"Nooooo!" he wailed. "Me MOOOO!"
Well, dang, if I knew you were that attached to your cow costume, I would have brought it out months ago! After all that searching, planning, Internet stalking... and he wanted what was in the basement.
Great. Well, at least I am off the hook (clock... get it?) this year for costumes! Between the already made cow and cheerleader costumes, the already owned Thomas and the just bought Army guy, I don't have to sew a blessed thing! I can start on Christmas!
Except that my machine is dead. But that's another post.
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