Halloween is right around the corner.  It’s not even October yet and I’ve seen several houses that have already started decorating with the orange and black ghoulish accents.  Thinking ahead on halloween and my shopping challenge, I pondered the whole halloween event from many angles.  Here’s my brain dump.

Kids halloween costumes.

My kids have never been at a loss for costume ideas, especially Joe.  I bought their costumes last year… their overpriced alter-identities to be used for one night.  This year, it’s their dad’s turn to buy costumes, and as it turns out, the boys forgot to ask him.  Now they’re going to really have to be creative!  Joe saved his Slurpee cups and decided several months ago to be ‘Slurpeevader’, a mix of Slurpee Man and Darth Vader.  I guess Cole will have to come up with something too.  Costumes can be found at the thrift store and on eBay, but the pickings are slim on the low priced stuff and the good selection cost as much as new.

Money.

Halloween, just like all other holidays, cost a lot of money.  If we have kids, we are expected to decorate our houses, buy costumes, have lots of candy to give away, carve pumpkins, make treats and probably many other things that I’m not doing.  What happened to having some holiday fun without spending a lot of money to do it?  Does all of this halloween commercialism really make it better?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s more difficult because if I choose to not buy into the commercialism, my kids think we’re doing this all wrong.  Either they will turn out like me or need lots of therapy.  I started their funds already.  

Oddities.

There are good and bad oddities around this holiday.  They have to be called oddities, since halloween is all about weirdness.  The weirder you are, the more normal you become on this particular day.  Here are some things I find odd.

A $75 (on sale) chiminea shaped like a halloween pumpkin.  Do you keep this out year round or do you have a place to store something like this?

Here’s a good oddity.  Dress up your halloween stuff and keep them out year round.  I love little skeleton girl.  She always has cool outfits, no matter what the season.

Costumes can get kind of crazy, which is fun, but I’m not sure how someone could think turning Spongebob Squarepants into sexy-type costume was a good idea.  Halloween is now known as the holiday where Spongebob lost his innocence.  And don’t get me started on the price or the Dorothy costume next to it.

This list could go on for days, but I’ll stop here.  I’m not dressing as Spongebabe, I’m not spending a bunch of money of junk we don’t need and I’m going to make sure my kids have fun with this holiday, without supporting the cultural commercialism dressed up as righteous necessary treats.