Costumes. Not just something for the kids. America takes dressing up for Halloween seriously.
This is just one wall of costume options in our local party shop. Behind me was another wall of possibilities.
According National Retail Federation, $1.75 billion will be spent on costumes for Halloween this year (with total spending on the holiday as a whole reaching $5.8 billion). The NRF has also worked out that 4 out of 10 adults will be dressing up this Halloween, and not just for an evening party.
It seems pretty common for people to wear their fancy dress to the workplace too.
Mr Devyne told me today that there's cash prizes for the best costumes (and even a fashion parade to help judge them) at his office. He also hinted that the cash prizes weren't to be sniffed at, easily a couple of pairs of new shoes for me. Yet no matter how I try I can't persuade the reserved Englishman that he is to dress up - I mean, new shoes worth?! The least he could do for me is hitch his trousers up high and wear an:
Aaaanyway....
You name it and you can get a costume, a wig, a mask for Halloween. They're on sale in supermarkets and party stores (which America has a lot of, have I mentioned before the USA loves to party?) We got this booklet full of costumes through the freepost the other day - 22 pages of outfits for kids, teens and adults:
It's also pleasing to see there's an abundance of costumes being 'recycled' in our local charity shops and Green Halloween's swap meets across the country (according to Green Halloween, if half the kids in the U.S. who celebrate Halloween swapped costumes, rather than buying new ones, the nation's annual landfill waste would be reduced by 6,250 tons, the weight of 2,500 mid-size cars). The case being that even if children haven't grown out of their costume from one year to the next - it's unlikely that a child will want to wear the same one 2 years in a row - so swapping seems a pleasant solution to chucking away.
And even though as a grown-up you can get costumes to dress up as a hotdog, chilly penguin, gorilla or chicken suit...
....the more 'usual' themes for costumes seem to be comic book heroes and villains, Star Wars characters, the Simpsons, Super Mario (and Yoshi, Princess Peach etc), a multitude of pirates, princesses, witches, vampires, Transformers, disney characters, various professions (police officers, doctors, sailors....ghostbusters), hippies, gangsters and their molls, fairy story protagonists, every sexy stereotype you can imagine....
Yes, these are the 'usual' ones, the 'unusual' include an outfit to make you look like a giant woopie cushion, giant babies, Bert and Ernie, Kermit and Miss Piggy, Bacon and Eggs, Mustard and Ketchup. I could go on and on.
I'm told that the most popular themes this year are Super Mario and Iron Man for boys; Jessie the Cowgirl from Toy Story and any cute princesses/witches for the girls; and for the grown-ups - Avatar, Jersey Shore (well basically Snooki and the Situation chest pieces), Alice in Wonderland (Alice, The Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts) and of course Lady Gaga outfits.
And then there are the scary costumes, wigs and masks...
...including ones that actually have animatronics within them to make you snarl and growl...
Sorry, did that scare you too much? Don't worry, let me provide some balance with cute costumes that make the kids look like Bernie Clifton...
And don't let your dog feel naked...
Meanwhile, in our household there's currently a battle going on between Melchett and Goth Child about which one of them is going to dress up as a witch (yes, I'm as gobsmacked as you that Goth Child actually wants to dress up). It is unclear which one triumphed first with the use of the bagsy, and now both want to be witches, and both don't want the other one to be a witch.....despite the number of times I've shown and explained to them how I can make them both look like witches whilst both looking totally dissimilar......it's a tough life being a Mum ;)
The only thing they were both in agreement about, and please don't ask me what this has to do with the look of a witch, was their joint delight and interest in:
...yep, Halloween weapons, in fact you can even spot Melchett's arm in that pic. Sometimes my children worry me.
And once BurlyCon's over next weekend I'd better get a move on making their witch costumes, or costume should they decide to settle the matter in deadly combat...with Halloween weapons....you never know with my two.
See also:
Halloween Watch pt 1 - stuff you can get in supermarkets and why I don't get Halloween being a Brit
Halloween Watch pt 2 - decorating your front garden/front yard for Halloween
Halloween Watch will continue, watch this space...just think of me as Bill Oddie in a dress, and if that doesn't give you nightmares, nothing will...
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