by Talia Linn

Created on: October 08, 2009

In my household growing up, we always made our own Halloween costumes. Our inventive outfits began out of necessity. My parents worked hard but lived paycheck to paycheck, only being able to pay the bills and provide living essentials. There was no money left for elaborate family outings or fancy Halloween attire. So, an old jewel-hued peasant dress of my mother's and a dangly silver belt transformed me into a twirling gypsy; my look was completed with gold hair ribbons and black Kohl eyeliner. Another year, a round fuzzy black hat and a white painted cardboard box with arm holes became the inspiration for my die costume. My mom and I cut out black fabric circles and hot glued them to the sides of the box. I threw on white leggings and, Yahtzee! I was a die. I loved being such a huge part of the planning process and being able to see my ideas brought to fruition. I was so proud of the imaginations my mother and I had. I never remember envying the kids with their uninspired factory made costumes and stereotypical accessories.

I recall going to the store when I was little and seeing the plastic character costumes with matching masks in forms such as Batman, Ninja-Turtles, Spider-Man and Barbie. Even at eight years old, I had this ingrained superiority complex in regard to store bought costumes. I truly believed that because my DIY costumes were creative and original that I was far better than my peers with their boring, run-of-the-mill plastic swords and tacky masks with badly placed eye holes. I smugly kept my condescending opinions to myself, as I was raised by the cliche, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." I guess that only applied to people outside the home, though, because my younger brother and I could be plenty ruthless to each other at times.

My brother was especially spiteful when I wore my mom's old blue and gold cheerleader one piece from the 70's as my Halloween attire in sixth grade. This costume choice must have seemed odd to my brother, as I was always the skinned knee collecting, frog catching, fish gutting, swamp marauding tomboy big sister. I had sold out in a particularly uncreative fashion. On Halloween morning when I came downstairs with my cheer outfit on for school, my seven year old brother snidely remarked, "Ya' know, girly-girl cheerleaders are stupid 'cause they don't even play sports. They just jump up and down while real sports players play the sports. Cheerleaders are just 'posta be football players'

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