*Flashback Friday*

several people mentioned that Julian's Halloween costume was so "creative", and honestly, it was a last ditch effort to correct my laziness in not trying his costume on him before the day of Halloween.

my mom, on the other hand, was amazingly creative with all of our costumes each year. i honestly don't remember any store bought costumes, although i'm sure i must have had one sometime.

the ones that i remember really stand out in my mind and i always appreciated the time and effort that she put in to making me look super cute each year, on a budget.

the first costume that i remember, was probably around 4 or 5 years old. she dressed me as a red crayola crayon. i had red sweats on (properly colored sweat pants/shirts were almost always the base of our costumes). then she wrapped a piece of red posterboard into a round, skinny tube and stapled it around my body (*around* my body, not *to* my body...that would have been horrible). she wrote "Crayola" and "Red" down the side, complete with the squiggle line under the crayola. then she fashioned a little cone shaped hat out of construction paper for the crayon tip. i felt so awesome.

another year, she put me in black sweats, painted my face dark, and then put a puffy black Hefty bag around my body, and a pair of gloves completed my outfit. I was a California Raisin. Genius, no?

one of my favorite memories, that i was sharing with Dustin tonight, was these "Hallelujah" parties that we used to attend as children. Even though we trick or treated (guiltily at times, depending on which church we were attending) we always made an effort to make sure that Jesus knew we weren't celebrating the "devil's holiday". We did this by making our costumes based on Bible characters, singing Christian music, and having a pinata, because apparently Jesus is BIG on pinatas.

the funniest part, though, is that most people had these typical "safe" costumes. Angels with wings and halos, sheperds in robes with big sticks (staffs) and fake beards. No. My Mom always went a step further.

One year, she found some halloween makeup that was supposed to be mixed with oatmeal and applied to look like peeling flesh or something. she applied this to my brother and he became the "leper" that Jesus healed. gruesome, but awesome.

another year, she dressed me all in white (white sheet, makeup, hair, everything). we had to go to the front of the church and "act out" our character. all i had to do was walk a few steps, stop and turn around, and then freeze. I was Lot's wife, after she turned into a pillar of salt.

but my absolute favorite, was when i was probably 5 or 6 years old. my mom dressed me in a velvet glittery dress, heavy costume jewelry, and LOTS of makeup, complete with a beauty mole. every other little girl was dressed as Mary or an angel....but me...I was JEZEBEL.
yes, my mom dressed me as the Bible harlot.

posted by mindi11 @ 11/03/2006 11:51:00 PM