Halloween Grinch

When the minions were young, in my naivete I made a lot of "I will NEVER..." statements. High on the list was "I will NEVER be a Halloween grinch." I made a pledge to always make elaborate non-scary decorations and have the best (chocolate and/or caramel) candy, and oooh-ahhh over all the costumes. This year....FAILURE. No cute decorations. No homemade costumes. I think the jack-o-lantern arrived about 9 pm. The ghost of Halloween-past brought me pictures to prove that we DID have precious little costumes, very creative non-scary decorations and fun little parties - long ago.BigB (in the BabyB days) did me proud by wearing his precious handmade-by-mom clown costume for several years running. The Sophisticate wore one of many versions of princess/fairy. The skeleton costume (non-scary name "X-ray costume") that I made from black sweats with iron-on interfacing? He wore that whole X-ray outfit DAILY through the winter until we peeled the iron-on bones right off. PPP and our Young Son have nobly made-do with hand-me-down made-by-mom costumes without complaint. Not that we have photographs to prove it, but still.

While nobody wore precious handmade-by-me costumes this year, a sports theme emerged. Yeah, I planned that. For my young adult children. A sports themed Halloween.

At school, PPP paired the Yankees cap with BigB's Robinson Cano T-shirt, though she is clueless as to who Mr. Cano is, or what he does, other than wear a jersey.
On Halloween itself, she inexplicably wore the cap with her "Risky Business" costume. Research proves there is actually no need for a ball cap with the "Risky Business" white shirt. Research also shows PPP's limited knowledge of "Risky Business." When our Young Son coached her on the need for the sunglasses, it should have been a red flag.I took her outside on the porch to 'take the picture' and asked her to 'do Risky Business.' She had no notion what I was talking about. She has never seen "Risky Business" ( what kind of a mother AM I?). SO...we watched the scene on YouTube. Twice.
THEN, she went outside with a silver bud vase and performed like a champion. PPP has promised, before the weekend ends, to actually watch "Risky Business" to assure that she is not Shakespeare-literate but Pop Culturally-ignorant.
The Sophisticate, who is an elite-level costume wearer, texted when it began to get dark.

Sophisticate: Did you sell my school skirts?

Me: NO (but I would if I could.)

Sophisticate: Cool. I'm going to be a Catholic school girl.

Me: You ARE a Catholic school girl. You GRADUATED from a Catholic girls' school.

Sophisticate: Yah. It'll work.

Me: I have no idea where they are.

She rummaged briefly in the disaster that is the attic, then rummaged through the 'heirloom clothes and costumes' closet....resulting in nothing, other than a trip down memory lane. "Oh, look! Here's BigB's pirate costume!" and further discussion of all the precious handmade-by-mom costumes. PRECIOUS they were, I tell you, PRECIOUS.Eventually, with the clock ticking she was muttering, "I don't care what it is, I just have to dress as SOMEthing. ANYthing." Seized by inspiration, she began rummaging in our Young Son's closet.

She got dressed as a precious football player, in an heirloom jersey. Had some gossip with BigB, who HATES to make an appearance on this blog. He "did Halloween" for work, which totally goes against his nature to dress for success. He wore....ballplayer gear. I feel sure he was some NY Yankee hero. The Young Son himself, well...he was actually a football player. At the football game. That we went to. So we had two baseball players and two football players. Nobody at our house answered the door for trick or treaters. We have all the candy, and it's a damn good thing, because NOBODY brought any home. No candy trading on the floor of our den. No snatching by me of all the caramels.

Over at the game, it was senior night. It was a huge rout by our team, and so.....numbingly boring. Is that a term a mother should use about her son's football game? We entertained ourselves by eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate.

PPP was "Being Risky Business" with her BFFs. We watched PPP and wondered who she was talking to.I spent some time in my obligatory musings about the different parents, and what they were wearing, and why. I don't think this guy was wearing a Halloween costume, I think those are his real cool-weather-football-clothes.

The regular season of football is officially over. But there is more football for this team. We started when it was hot, but now we're all pulling out our blankets and our jackets. See that U in the middle of the field? Tonight, it stands for UNDEFEATED. And I would NEVER say that until it actually happened. A good Halloween, (ask the Halloween Grinch) for my precious athletic-costumed children.