Monday, October 31, 2011

Retro Halloween

Note: Today's blog was powered by fun-sized Almond Joy bars.

Ever seen that Catching Fireflies catalog? If you have far too much discretionary income, do check out their Halloween costumes. Here is my favorite:


Quite a bit different from the costumes I used to get. My mom would take my sister and me to the grocery store, where we had to decide between Spock:

and WitchiePoo:
Note name on costume: only way to tell who the hell you dressed up as
The masks for Spock, Witchiepoo, Strawberry Shortcake, Thor, Fonzie, Skeletor, etc. had little nostril holes to breathe through. Yeah, those didn't work.

At least there weren't any Snooki wigs back then:

Nowadays, you can decorate your house with full sized electric chairs.


Quite different from our big 1970's splurge - cardboard cut outs, which we installed with fancy sticky tape:
You know some smarty pants wanted to add, "WHOO'S ready for Halloween?"

You know what though? I pity modern kids. For us, trick-or-treating didn't start until after dark. the moon was up, bats were flying, and things were much more Halloween-ish in general. Now they go door to door in broad daylight. I understand it's all much safer, but where's the fun in that?

If you are looking for some retro fun for your kids, read them The Witch Family, by Eleanor Estes. There are witches, obviously, as well as mermaids, Easter bunnies, and a few humans. Good stuff.

This cover just screams retro. Find it and enjoy this undervalued gem!

5 comments:

DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empire said...

I am so old that I never bought a complete costume at a store. I did buy accessories.

Won a prize in 2nd grade for making a robot costume from several boxes (body, head, etc.). The robot was also a computer: if you wrote a question on a piece of paper and pushed it through the slot the robot would speak the answer with 90% accuracy.

Kathleen Barker said...

If we complained about our homemade costumes our parents would threaten to wrap us in aluminum foil and we could trick or treat as leftovers. alumiMy parents

Pame Brennan said...

We were the 'lucky?' cousins who got the store bought costumes with the masks you couldn't breathe through!

Does it make me a bad person to fondly remember throwing corn at peoples aluminum doors and soaping their windows???

Thanks for the memories, Allie!!

Johanna Garth said...

Are we soul sisters or what? I featured The Witch Family on my blog a couple of weeks ago. Love that book and am now reading it with my daughter!! Ta-ta Witchie-Poo! ;) Hope you and yours have a great Halloween.

Alison DeLuca said...

We are indeed soul sisters, Johanna! And you are the first person I"ve met who knew that book. Yay!

Genna and I read it together, too, and she loved it. Her favorite part was Malachi, the Spelling Bee.