Halloween: A look back

I have always loved Halloween. Not because of the candy, the staying out late, or even the graph I made every year of how much of which type of candy I got. Seriously. I did this. For fun.

No, Halloween is a chance to, for one night only, become something else. It is a day where your imagination can take over 100%, and you leave yourself behind. Am I unhappy with myself? No. But just this one night, you can be whatever you want. It's as if the entire world is under a spell for only a few hours. Come to think of it, I think there is a movie where that actually does happen....

Anyway. I went home today and poured over no less than twenty photo albums to put together this timeline of alter-egoes I have taken on. I wish I could say there are 23 photos here, but sadly there are not. Some are missing, some never had photos taken, and then there were those few years that I was a baby.... But I did my best with such short notice. You will notice a few things as you flip through my life in Halloweens. One: There are no repeating costumes. I have never, ever worn the same costume twice. I have been similar things, yes, but never in exactly the same way. It is a personal rule of mine. Two: Many of these are home made. I try to spend as little money as possible on my costumely endeavors, because part of the fun is in creating the persona for yourself. Three: In some ways, this is also a timeline of the improvements of photography technology over the course of my life. See if you can spot the year my mom got a digital camera!

Ready? Too bad - here we go!!

First Picture I could find: 1990, age 2. I was a cheerleader, and my brother was a ninja turtle.

1991, age 3 and a My Little Pony that my grandmother made. That's my brother again, being... A... different ninja turtle. I'm telling you, those who read my capstone piece. I'm not lying about the carpet color being an homage to the turtles...

1994, age 6. There are a few years missing between the last one and this one, and to tell you the truth, I don't remember what I was during that "period of missing photos." Check out my best friend Cory as Sonic and Eric... still a ninja, though not a turtle this time...

I thiiink this was 2nd grade. Or 3rd, maybe. The one that is missing between these is some version of Pocahontas, but my dad took us T or T'ing that year, so I think he has the photos. I particularly love this one, because I thought penguins held their arms out like that naturally. I didn't know it was because their bodies are so round that their flippers rest in that position. I spent the whole night with my arms out like a lunatic.

This one. This one is my masterpiece. I think I'm in 4th grade right here. I had this onesie (all the cool kids slept in onesies...) that had a mix of animal patterns, and I got that bear head/hat when I went skiing. I put them together to create some horrible genetic experiment gone wrong. I made people read my sign explaining the costume. Dig those sneakers.

6th grade. We're missing a doubles shot of my sister and me as matching dalmatians, me with my baton in my mouth because for some reason I thought it looked like a bone. I also had string attached to my tail so could wag it at will.

But anyway, this one's pretty odd when you think about it. What would people from the 50s think of children dressing up in what were once normal clothes for them, as a costume?

Walkin' like an Egyptian in the 7th grade...

Dressing up as a time period seems to be a trend... That's me on the left (in case you didn't know by now) being a "Renaissance Princess." 8th grade

-----we're missing a few here. I do apologize, for some of them were really spectacular. -----

9th grade: Lil' cat (okay that one was cheesy and store bought)

10th grade: Get ready for this. A bag of groceries. Actually there is a picture for this one, somewhere, but the person who took it failed to capture the essence properly. I had an Aldi bag on as a skirt and had made a sign thingy on which I had taped various boxes and bags of groceries. Most people thought I was trash, though.

11th grade: School girl, although all night people said I was Britney Spears.

Which brings us to....

Senior year, and costume I affectionately refer to as "halfsies." I had a cape too, but for some reason it got left out of this shot... Come on, there's a little of both in all of us.

2006, freshman year of college, I started a new tradition of wearing my Halloween PJs during the day and a "real" costume at night. So I guess this is the year of the bunny in Pajamas and the ladybug.

Sophomore year. That first one is "My own cat, Scooter, in festive pajamas." The one on the bottom is a mummy, NOT a zombie!! Mummies are my favorite monster, and this is still one of my favorite costumes ever -- even if it did kinda fall apart.

Junior year, I mentored young writers, so I decided against the pajamas. This is Penelope, from the movie of the same name. On the left is my SAI big sister Reba as a spider web. Super awesome!

Senior year, I had a boy who was enough of a good sport to don a themed costume with me. Here we are, as a child and his teddy bear! Go ahead and say, "Aww..." You know you want to.

In this hilariously complimentary themed costume from 2010, Michael and I are a raccoon and an employee of animal control. Poor Michael has a lifetime of silly theme costumes ahead of him....

Annnnd here we are at Halloween 2011, disguised as scarecrows. He turned down the Ash & Misty idea, but there's time yet to convince him...

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So there you have it, friends. That was my life in Halloweens. I hope you enjoyed yourself - I know I have! Tomorrow I'm going to hit up Wal Mart and buy all their half-priced candy, then make my graph --- I mean EAT IT ALL without attempting to quantify or represent any kind of data relating to the candy whatsoever!