Halloween has always been my favorite season. It’s just starting to get chilly, there’s spooky decor everywhere, and everybody’s coming up with fun costumes. It’s the one time of the year I feel like everyone is in on this “joy of costuming” thing with me. Halloween is the one special time you can dress up and transform yourself, no matter who you are, and nobody thinks it’s weird. Everybody is included in the world’s biggest costume party!

For me, Halloween has always been more magical, less scary. And although I love spooky movies, I’m not really into horror and gore so much these days. Yes, I did just do a tutorial on very gory Freddy Krueger Make-up, but Nightmare on Elm Street was something that scared me as a kid, so that’s how I became a Freddy fan. I must be getting older and more sensitive, because it gives me anxiety to watch that stuff now! And the remake that gave him the backstory of being a child molester…well, yuck. I made my costume way before that came out, and when I was little, he was just a scary kid murdering kind of guy. That was bad enough!

Our First Trunk-or-Treat

This year is the first time we participated in decorating our trunk for a Trunk-or-Treat event and we had so much fun! We are already planning bigger and better things for next year. This year we just pulled some of our decorations out of the yard and threw it all together with a “Halloween Under the Sea” theme.

In the end, the theme was basically “pirates.” You can’t really see it in the photo, but the skeleton on the right is a mermaid. And I was all excited about that pirate chest I ordered off Amazon that I thought said it was 18″ long, and it ended up being a whopping 8.5″. Oops! But we filled it with gold chocolate coins and the kids loved them.

Pumpkins, Candy and Tombstones

Our spooky season starts by decorating the yard. We managed to wait until October 1st this year, but some years we started in September. However, we’ve learned if we put it up too early, there’s always some bad storm that blows stuff down before Halloween. Our yard is decorated with tombstones, skeletons, a big spider web and giant spiders. And throughout the yard are little spooky touches. We add more decor every year and future plans include chair covers, more spiderwebs and more tombstones.

We’ve done two Halloween events so far, and somehow my son has already eaten all his candy. You might notice from the pictures that he doesn’t exactly go all out on the costumes. I always tell him he can be whatever he wants and I’ll help make it. And then he just wants to wear a t-shirt and shorts. So I’ve started planning his costumes around stuff he will actually wear. I was so happy he actually wore his pirate vest! I didn’t try and push it with a hat. And he did at least wear a cape with his Batman t-shirt and shorts.

Halloween is Almost Here

Although we celebrate all month long, there’s nothing like the big night! I absolutely love that we get to go trick-or-treating again and will miss it when my son grows out of it. It’s fun to see all the costumed kids running around the neighborhood. My son is so excited about tomorrow night! And he actually has a full costume- Myles Morales Spider-Man. He’s been too shy to wear it to any of the events, but anything goes on Halloween!

Hope you all have a very Happy Halloween 2021!

~~~~~~~~~~ *** ~~~~~~~~~~

About the Author

Candy Keane is a digital content creator and long-time cosplayer, most well-known for being on the cover of the Star Wars documentary Jedi Junkies. After making costumes professionally for over a decade, she now writes about about geek culture and mom life, and continues to cosplay for fun, while sharing her love of costumes on Instagram @SewGeekMama. Her first children’s book, I’m Going to My First Comic Convention, was published in 2020 and won a Story Monsters Approved award for Excellence in Literature.

Learn more