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Halloween 2006

Labor Day is now behind us, which means we've officially entered Halloween season! Halloween is my family's favorite holiday, and we take it very seriously. First on the agenda every year is finding the right costumes.

Before kids, my husband and I would spend a lot of time visiting costume stores, sometimes to buy a costume, sometimes to get ideas so we could make our own. While we still like to dress up each year, our focus is now turned to finding the perfect costumes for our girls.

For the past few years, we picked Cordy's costume without any input from her. Now that she's turning three, however, I think it's time to let her have a say in the matter. Of course, the first hurdle is explaining what a costume is.

"Cordy, what do you want to be for Halloween?"

"How-a-ween?"

"Right. Do you want a costume?"

"I want a costume!"

"What costume do you want?"

"Higglytown Heroes costume! I am the sun!" I realize at this point, she's remembering the episode of Higglytown Heroes where they wore costumes for the school play.

"Yes, like Higglytown! Do you want to be a flower?"

"No."

"Do you want to be a princess?"

"No."

"Do you want to be a superhero?"

"No." OK, this isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I think she still doesn't get the concept, but I keep trying.

"Do you want to be a fairy?"

"No."

"Do you want to be a monster?"

"Monster!" she exclaims with glee. OK, we have a monster as a possibility, I guess.

"Do you want to be a pirate?" I continue.

"No."

My husband then chimes in: "Cordy, do you want to be a ninja?"

"No..." then "Ninja!" she cheerily adds.

At this point, we decide that a ninja or a monster are pretty limited choices. So tonight we took her to a costume store to let her pick out a costume. She ran up and down the aisles, stopping to point at the giant lawn decoration monsters and laugh. We showed her lots of costumes, but she didn't seem interested in any of them. At one point, she grabbed a cowboy hat and wore it for a while, but then ditched it for a Viking hat instead.

I wasn't that impressed with the selection of children's costumes at this store, meaning that we left without a costume. A costume has to have something special to it, and none of the available choices seemed good enough. This is only the beginning of the hunt, however. Rarely do we find the ideal costume at the first store. And even though Cordy doesn't seem very interested in a costume yet, I hope she will give us some input as to what she might want to wear. I'd like her to enjoy her costume.

As for Mira, we'll probably have to order her costume online, if we can find it. My husband plans to dress as a Jedi from Star Wars this year, and he wants Mira to be dressed as baby Princess Leia. He thinks the costumes would go well together as he passes out candy during trick-or-treat. At least we have two of the family costumes picked out. Of course, we occasionally have more than one costume each for the holiday, just in case anyone throws a Halloween party. After all, the more costumes the better, right?

Check out Disney Family.com's group Halloween blog, The Ghoul's Guide, for more stories and tips.