Three years ago my friend group spent two weeks arguing in a group chat about Halloween. Someone wanted something scary, someone wanted something cute, someone said they refused to wear a wig, and the fourth person replied to everything with a single thumbs-up. We ended up going as a mismatched mess at 9 p.m. on…
My cousin Priya spent three weeks sewing a spectacular set of matching costumes for her family of three. On Halloween night, her two-year-old took one look at the hat, screamed “NO HAT,” and threw it into a neighbor’s rosebush. The costumes lasted eleven minutes. The photo, though, is framed in her hallway, and the toddler…
Three years ago I wore a beautiful, very structured mermaid costume to a Halloween party and spent four hours unable to sit down. I stood by the snack table like a lighthouse. Great photos, terrible night. Since then I’ve had one rule: if I can’t eat, sit, and hold a drink at the same time,…
Every October, my friend group chat goes through the same ritual. Someone posts “group costume this year??”, four people react with a flame emoji, and then nothing happens until October 27th, when we discover that all the good four-person ideas need exactly one more person. Two years ago we ended up as “the four horsemen…
Last October I spent $24 on a very elaborate lobster costume for my sister’s cat, Biscuit. Biscuit lasted about eleven seconds before she flopped onto her side like a dropped sandbag and refused to move until I took it off. She was fine. The lobster was not. I learned two things that day: cats have…
When my cousin Priya was seven months pregnant, she showed up to a Halloween party in a store-bought “sexy witch” costume with a zipper that lasted about eleven minutes. She spent the rest of the night wrapped in her husband’s flannel, eating cheese cubes, and telling everyone she’d be back in a real costume next…
My grandmother Ruth was 67 the year she agreed to dress up for my cousin’s Halloween party. The costume in the package had a zipper up the back, a stiff plastic hat, and an eye mask she couldn’t see through. She stood in the hallway holding it and said, “Who is this made for?” She…
My mom, Carol, turned 56 the October she wore a mesh-sleeved “sexy nurse” costume to a neighborhood party because it was the only adult option left at the drugstore. She spent the evening tugging at the hem and left an hour early with sore feet. Watching that, I decided Halloween costume ideas for women over…
Three Octobers ago I ordered a “one size fits most” witch dress for my cousin Renee, who wears a 2X. It arrived in a bag the size of a paperback, the seams were already stressed at the hips, and the “sleeves” were basically tubes for a child. She wore her leather jacket over it, stood…
Last October, my roommate Dominique spent $64 on a “sexy witch” costume that arrived in a bag the size of a sandwich. The fabric was see-through under a phone flashlight, the wig was a color that exists nowhere in nature, and none of it worked with her skin tone. She wore her denim jacket over…