Halloween can be fun if you think about it

I love Halloween.

Besides Christmas, it’s probably my favorite holiday. Carving pumpkins, drinking apple cider, dressing up in costumes, drinking pumpkin beer, going to “scary” haunted house tours…geez the list is endless.

I can actually sew a little bit, so the past few years I have made my costumes from scratch a la Project Runway style. I had my own “make it work” moment last year when my Cleopatra dress turned out about five inches too big on each side so I was frantically taking it in almost right up to the moment my friends showed up for my party.

This year, my boyfriend and I are doing a couples costume and because we’ve had so much stress lately (new jobs, moving, getting a puppy) I decided to make it as easy as possible on myself. Making one costume is hard. Making two is nearly impossible unless you live in a cave with no human contact. So after several lengthy conversations (“But I don’t want to be a hobbit…or Gandolf”) we decided to be Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World. It totally works out too – I have blonde hair and his is darker, he has been growing his hair out, and we own about 65 different t-shirts, plaid shirts, and pairs of Converse sneakers. I wear big dark glasses like Garth and can do a pretty good impression, if I do say so myself. Awesome owns tight jeans like Wayne wears.

Although I love Halloween I do hate the fact that 99 percent of women consider it a chance to dress like a whore without being accused of actually being one. Everything is a “Sexy” something or other. Sexy Detective, Sexy Cat, Sexy Evil Queen.

The whole point of Halloween is to dress up as a character…not to sex up cartoons (Sexy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle), TV and movie characters (Sexy Lady Zorro), and childhood favorites (Sexy Teddy Bear?!) I always take this opportunity to either dress like a man, or sew the actual costume of the character I am portraying. When I was Alice from Alice in Wonderland, I wasn’t “Sexy Alice” I was “Alice.” For crying out loud, she is supposed to be like, a ten-year-old girl.

I also hate overly ridiculous couples costumes. Has anyone seen that costume where the man is the plug and the woman is the socket? Ew! I think we all know what parts go where without being completely crude. Please, if you choose to do a couples costume, be very selective and creative.

One of the guys at work is dressing as the Mayhem guy from the Allstate commercial, and his girlfriend is going to be Flo from the Progressive commercial (as a former Flo costumer myself, I gave my blessing). Now that is creative. Last year my younger sister was the Utz potato chip girl, and her boyfriend was Natty Boh.

You can easily make a costume without going to the Halloween superstore and spending $200 on a “deluxe” costume that was sewn by starving children in a third world sweatshop that will fall apart as soon as you wash it anyway.

Get creative!

Some of my favorites for this year are Sharknado (just Google it, thank me later), Breaking Bad, Prince William/Kate Middleton, the Great Gatsby, Miley Cyrus (I guess this is “sexy”), the minions from Despicable Me (Awesome and I were thisclose to making this), and any character from Game of Thrones.

Halloween is an amazing opportunity to get out there and be someone else for a day/night. Don’t just half-ass it and wear half of a skirt with some hooker heels and call it a Sexy Teletubbie. Put some thought into it!

Emily Campbell

Emily Little (nee Campbell) was a perpetually single girl who recently met and married her Mr. Right. Her blog, Dating Emily, has been a two-year diary of her adventures in relationships. Her life of bar-hopping and casual dating has turned into one of dog-walking, craft-making and budgeting for eventual home ownership. But just because she can make a mean casserole doesn’t mean her adventures are over. As she prepares to become a first-time homeowner and eventually, a mom, she is discovering that the adventure may just be beginning.