For the New Year, I hope to limit my “Better late than never” comments to a minimum, but since it’s January and Halloween was over two months ago… You get it. Happy Halloween!

As in most homes with young people who celebrate Halloween, there’s always a period of time where those youngsters try to figure out what they want to “be for Halloween”. In our home, there are usually LOTS of ideas–and often a last-minute scramble to make one of them actually happen.

This year was somewhat different, since out of nowhere Zoe announced that she planned to be Pippi Longstocking. Before you look it up, it’s Longstocking, not Longstockings, though she is wearing two of them. Back to Zoe’s costume…I had no idea she remembered who Pippi was. I still have no idea where the idea came from, and yet, with two t-shirts and a pillow from Goodwill, which she “crafted” into a costume, and some cheap socks I scoured Amazon to find, she transformed:

You may notice that a) she did NOT want to dye her hair or wear a wig, and b) she’s not in our home. In fact, this picture is the only sight of her in that costume I got to see, since she spent the night at a friend’s house and went trick-or-treating with their family. I had to beg for a photo to see it at all. The first one she sent me was this:

All these Halloween teenager choices confirm that once she gets her driver’s license, which is not too far away, we may rarely see her.

Ella, on the other hand, had lots of very different ideas for her costume, strongly influenced by anime characters I can’t pronounce and the fact that her friend kept changing her mind on what she wanted. One option, one of the Saja Boys from the most popular film (and music) of the year, KPop Demon Hunters, is not a last-minute task. Yet for us, it was.

I begged her to make a final decision as soon as possible. She didn’t, then when she DID, I went online to check out the costumes, and they were $40 and took 3 weeks to arrive. We barely had 3 weeks, and while we had $40, that sounded like a lot to pay for one night, when she’d never wear that outfit again. So we talked her into going to the Halloween store to look, where the same exact costume was $80!

We had no idea what size would fit her (Maybe 140? 150? What the heck does that even mean?!), and we’d have no time to exchange if it didn’t. So we ordered both, planning to return one or find another kid who needed one. It’s not lost on me that it cost $80 to do that… Anyway, meet Baby Saja:

Yes, that image says “Baba Saja”. I know that NOW. But I didn’t notice it when I posted it to Instagram, and no one (not even those people who “liked” it, possibly out of pity) mentioned my typo. Anyway, Baby Saja barely talks in the movie yet has fun rap solos in the songs (example at 1 min, 7 seconds), which of course, I couldn’t get Ella to agree to do, but she had fun anyway.

If you saw ANY pictures of kids at Halloween this year, you most definitely saw one (or all) of the girl characters from KPop Demon Hunters… And for the record, those costumes were in demand, but much, much easier to find. Of course. And if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s on Netflix and worth watching.

I used to love Halloween SO MUCH; in fact, it’s one of the reasons we got married on Halloween (the other, better reason being that it was my Grandmother’s birthday). I’ve blogged before about what a misstep it is to get married on a holiday you love, then have kids, so I’ll leave that alone, but this year, I was committed to at least wearing a costume. I even pulled off two bad ones.

For my annual wellness appointment and to Ella’s school for their Halloween parade, I wore a Gingerbread Man onesie. No one even knew it was a costume… And for the trick or treating we did with Ella’s friends, I was a gravestone painter (don’t judge; I literally cobbled together weird stuff from my house an hour before we had to leave and asked Ella to paint a canvas) and Bart was a pirate, sort of:

I’m not proud of our choices, but I’m proud we at least tried. One day, we’ll actually get to celebrate our anniversary on Halloween, as adults, and maybe then I’ll do better than phoning it in? I have no idea how other parents, many with even smaller children, manage to create stunningly clever costumes, host parties with signature cocktails, AND make sure their kids have a great time.

We also went to Carved at Descanso, an annual tradition with glow sticks to boot (photo up top), and we had friends over for dinner and made disturbing pumpkin Rice Krispie treats and a Brie mummy.

In October, prior to Halloween, we were super busy…I flew around the country hosting roundtables for work and got to see my sister at my final stop in NYC, where we got out of three escape rooms, the interactive Arte museum, and two Broadway shows (Hadestown and Death Becomes Her). What a treat!

Also in October, Zoe was a fairy in a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Though it was a Shakespeare play, they added a Hunger Games theme and backdrop. I’m not sure I totally got that part, but it was a blast to watch her onstage, as always (front row, left):

Her fairy, Mustardseed (that’s apparently an actual fairy name from the play) got to deliver a special whistle, which was beautiful, and they worked in song and dance, written and choreographed by two students. I happen to stalk follow her school theater group’s Instagram account, and I screen grab any that have her featured, like this one:

And sweet, talented Ella was featured in a virtual piano recital, for which she wrote a story, The Lonely White Swan, to tie three pieces of music together for the audience, including props! (CLICK FOR VIDEO)

I’m calling October–and Halloween–a WIN. Sure, we could improve in 2026, and sure, we probably won’t. I’ll let this silly Care Bear beanie that I stole from my teenager speak for last year and go from there.