I love holidays. There's nothing like a holiday to bring out the crazy in a person.
Take Halloween for instance. You either love it or you hate it. There's really no in-between. I love to wear costumes, I love to see the kids in their costumes, and I love to carve pumpkins, decorate my house, and watch "The Great Pumpkin" re-runs on TV while eating caramel apples. Holidays allow us to act like kids again, if only for one night.
So, this year for Halloween I'm dressing up as a prom queen. I'm wearing my own Senior Prom dress from 1989. Again, I have to ask myself what it is about Halloween that would prompt me to dress up in a ridiculous outfit that I have spent the last almost 20 years of my life trying to block from my memory. It's that holiday-induced madness that I succumb to every year. I was practically giddy as I spent an hour looking for blue mascara, blue eyeshadow and bubblegum pink lipstick. I bought a wig since I have non-80's hair that just won't work with the costume. I even made a sash for myself with "Prom Queen 1989" on it in large letters. I am beside myself with excitement.
Halloween can be taken a bit too far, though. Decorations, for example. I recently went out and spent perfectly good money on fake cobwebs with little spiders attached. My kids and I happily roamed around the house, putting up cobwebs and spiders. I spread mine out to look like actual cobwebs. Luke, my five year old son, stuck his up in large clumps, as if his spiders were only able to produce cotton balls rather than webs. Maggie eyed everything critically and told me that her cobweb placement was far superior to her brother's. Ella thought the cobwebs were actually cotton candy and tried to eat them.
I suddenly realized that I currently have actual cobwebs in my house that are far better looking than the fake ones I purchased. Every few days I look at these real cobwebs derisively, and mutter under my breath about getting out the vacuum to take care of them. It never happens. I'm afraid of them, mainly because we have actual spiders, too. Not little spiders that scurry under the furniture when you approach; we have large spiders whose apparent goal is to snag one of the cats in the massive web that they have constructed just inside our mudroom door. I'm sure the real spiders would escape the pull of my vacuum and gather to plot some sort of revenge against me involving lurking in my shoes.
I have also purchased those pumpkin carving kits. You know, the ones with the special saws and patterns and such. What ever happened to hacking into the pumpkin with a large knife like I did when I was a kid? Granted, these days I'd have my children taken from me if I snapped a picture of Luke wielding a 12 inch chef's knife in his hand. Yet, there are pictures of me doing that very thing when I was a kid.
My pumpkin design was always dictated by the size of the knife blade, which was the main reason that my jack-o-lantern faces mainly consisted of triangles and zigzag mouths. That was the only way I could get the knife to work. Now, each year my children pick out some elaborate paper pattern of a witch on a broom and begin hacking into their pumpkins with their little saws, before giving up and making a jack-o-lantern with triangle eyes and zigzag mouth. I guess all those extra holes in the pumpkin can be used for ventilation.
Take Halloween for instance. You either love it or you hate it. There's really no in-between. I love to wear costumes, I love to see the kids in their costumes, and I love to carve pumpkins, decorate my house, and watch "The Great Pumpkin" re-runs on TV while eating caramel apples. Holidays allow us to act like kids again, if only for one night.
So, this year for Halloween I'm dressing up as a prom queen. I'm wearing my own Senior Prom dress from 1989. Again, I have to ask myself what it is about Halloween that would prompt me to dress up in a ridiculous outfit that I have spent the last almost 20 years of my life trying to block from my memory. It's that holiday-induced madness that I succumb to every year. I was practically giddy as I spent an hour looking for blue mascara, blue eyeshadow and bubblegum pink lipstick. I bought a wig since I have non-80's hair that just won't work with the costume. I even made a sash for myself with "Prom Queen 1989" on it in large letters. I am beside myself with excitement.
Halloween can be taken a bit too far, though. Decorations, for example. I recently went out and spent perfectly good money on fake cobwebs with little spiders attached. My kids and I happily roamed around the house, putting up cobwebs and spiders. I spread mine out to look like actual cobwebs. Luke, my five year old son, stuck his up in large clumps, as if his spiders were only able to produce cotton balls rather than webs. Maggie eyed everything critically and told me that her cobweb placement was far superior to her brother's. Ella thought the cobwebs were actually cotton candy and tried to eat them.
I suddenly realized that I currently have actual cobwebs in my house that are far better looking than the fake ones I purchased. Every few days I look at these real cobwebs derisively, and mutter under my breath about getting out the vacuum to take care of them. It never happens. I'm afraid of them, mainly because we have actual spiders, too. Not little spiders that scurry under the furniture when you approach; we have large spiders whose apparent goal is to snag one of the cats in the massive web that they have constructed just inside our mudroom door. I'm sure the real spiders would escape the pull of my vacuum and gather to plot some sort of revenge against me involving lurking in my shoes.
I have also purchased those pumpkin carving kits. You know, the ones with the special saws and patterns and such. What ever happened to hacking into the pumpkin with a large knife like I did when I was a kid? Granted, these days I'd have my children taken from me if I snapped a picture of Luke wielding a 12 inch chef's knife in his hand. Yet, there are pictures of me doing that very thing when I was a kid.
My pumpkin design was always dictated by the size of the knife blade, which was the main reason that my jack-o-lantern faces mainly consisted of triangles and zigzag mouths. That was the only way I could get the knife to work. Now, each year my children pick out some elaborate paper pattern of a witch on a broom and begin hacking into their pumpkins with their little saws, before giving up and making a jack-o-lantern with triangle eyes and zigzag mouth. I guess all those extra holes in the pumpkin can be used for ventilation.
Anyway, the holiday madness will only increase the closer we get to Christmas. I am a true Christmas junkie. I love to decorate. I always decorate the day after Thanksgiving. I get out the Christmas music, make myself an eggnog (heavy on the nog) and get to work. I drag out box after box of decorations, and reminisce about where I got them and how long I've had them. I sing along with the Christmas carols. I drink more eggnog. I deck the halls and trim the tree and generally adorn everything that doesn't move with some sort of bow or something. I draw the line at my pets, though. I haven't gotten far enough along in my insanity to put antlers on my dogs.
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