We’ve found ourselves in a bit of a Halloween Tradition: decorating our trunk and handing out candy for our Church’s Trunk and Treat. But the problem is, when you spend your first year dressed as a Pregnant Mary, Donkey, and Angel, it’s seriously hard to ever top that.
(Nor will Noah ever live up to his role as Jesus-in-Utero. But that’s not really the point right now.)
But this year, I found inspiration in the International Section at Unclaimed Baggage, and bought all four of us authentic but mysterious outfits (for $6-12 each, might I add.)
(So yes, we built our Halloween on the backs of now-naked international tourists.)
These pieces, by the way, made me feel seriously icky about the quality of American clothing. They were so thick, so luxurious, so delicately hand-sewn, so opulent…
I admit to having no idea exactly what nations our outfits came from. A good homeschool Mom would have researched them tirelessly and done a unit study with each child on their country of origin.
But I am not that Mom.
Instead, we titled our trunk “Vaguely Arabian” and whenever pushed for more detailed information regarding our theme, explained that there was no absolute truth to the story of our trunk, but we didn’t have a Genie, so we couldn’t be Aladdin.
I’m guessing that Ali’s dress was from somewhere in South Asia – Malaysia or Bangladesh perhaps. Noah’s definitely looked Middle-Eastern-Muslim (and came with white cotton pants that were way too big for him.) His still had the tags on them, so I imagined that someone had taken a holiday to Dubai and lost their grandson’s souvenir.
I’m nearly positive I was wearing an Indian Sari and Chris was wearing…I really have no idea what Chris was wearing. But it was awesome.
His Full-Length embroidered robe could have been worn by the North African Monks guarding the Ark of the Covenant. But perhaps without the tennis shoes and cargo shorts.
As for our background, it was…well, it was bad.
I could give many excuses, like being out of town for the last three weekends, serious hecticness the days we were home, the fact that trunk and treat had to be adjusted two hours earlier to avoid the rain storms and therefore was in my trunk instead of Chris’ so we couldn’t make our background as high, and since it was in the daylight it looked more crappy than it would’ve appeared in the dark, but…
It was what it was.
$4 Flying carpets from Wal-Mart tie-wrapped together, our castle recycled from last year with leaning Arabian Turrets…and that’s pretty much it.
Fortunately, Noah didn’t care. AT ALL.
And Ali was so excited about handing out candy that she didn’t seem to notice our lacking in detail either.
She asked me when it was going to start once a minute every minute, and as soon as she started to see “Customers”, she was giddy with excitement.
She worked frantically, picking out the right two pieces of candy for each child with a level of OCD that would even make Sheldon proud.
Noah was entirely too busy chain sucking all the Dum Dums, but every now and then he would be inspired, grab a hand-full of candy, and give a lucky kid quite the bonus.
That is, unless he was shunned.
Some kids just prefer their candy not be covered in Dum Dum grease, I guess.
Everyone got tired after a while and retreated to the Arabian Resort, offering lodging for other poor exhausted candy-collectors.
But somehow, when it was time to set out with their Vaguely Arabian Father to gather their own loot, their zeal was miraculously restored.
So if you know where our clothing was really from, or just care to make a random guess, please do.
Ha!!! That’s hilarious and very cool! And look! My brother and I are in that last picture!
And your CHILD, but I guess you’re not counting her. :-)
That’s not my child! That’s my niece……wait, that’s not any better for me, is it?
I love that you chose “easy” as your theme! One of the main reasons that I am a Halloween Grinch is that it’s just too darn much trouble, and too expensive, to fool with costumes. If you can come up with a cheap, easy costume (as opposed to one that makes you LOOK cheap and easy, there are tons of those), then I think you are a Halloween winner.
Perfectly stated! The “cheap & easy” look has become the theme for most costumes these days. Love the mystery costumes!
I’ve been pondering a lot this week – what if it hadn’t been Halloween that became the slutty holiday? What if it’d been Easter, and we saw slutty Easter Eggs everywhere? Or Christmas, and Slutty Elves filled your family Christmas lunch?
hahahahahahahahahahahaha wouldn’t that be crazy?! I would love it if Halloween wasn’t slutty.
It IS a lot of trouble, especially for perfectionists! So thanks for that!
I have no idea where your outfits might have originated from but I LOVE that blue color on you! ;-)
After living in Arabia for 13 years and being married to a South Asian (Bangladesh) for nearly 7. I’ll say with almost 5% authority that all those outfits are South Asian in origin. They are Shalwar (pants) Khamees (shirt) outfits. Yours isn’t a Sari as that would entail a small shirt that shows your belly with a huge skirt, and a big wrap thingy. So hard to wear for non-south asians.
I enjoy your posts!
Thanks so much! Yes, I knew Sari wasn’t quite right, but I had no idea what the correct word could be. Clearly I need to live in Arabia for a while! Sounds fascinating.
Hmmm… I think you’re probably more or less on track with your guesses. I think your and Ali’s outfits look Northern Indian (they wear clothes with a bit more coverage than saris as it’s colder up north). Could Chris’ be African? I don’t think any of them are really from the middle east except possibly Noah’s shirt. But hey… you all got dressed in some sort of costume and had a fun time so that’s the main thing. :)
we don’t do trunk or treat yet but I’m thinking next year we probably will since Jake will be 2. I was disappointed in the lack of lights on this year for Halloween so next year we will probably hit up the trunk or treat with an ‘easy’ trunk of our own and then maybe a better neighborhood than the one we visited this year for more candy (for my husband and I, not Jake, hahahaha).
My oldest daughter calls trick or treaters “customers,” too! She may have enjoyed handing out candy more than actually trick or treating!
I love that you guys dressed up like that… (as opposed to my husband who adamantly refused to be Chewbacca to my Leia and Boog’s X-Wing fighter pilot. Buzzkill).
Jesus-In-Utero… funniest punchline :)
The dress Ali is wearing looks a bit like the Moroccan clothing my aunt brought home for Elizabeth