The key to creating a simple, last-minute Halloween ensemble is to embrace your inner slacker. Halloween is all about having fun. If costumes are stressing you, you’re missing the point. If KIDS are stressing you ABOUT costumes… Well, we feel your pain.
Besides the very specific easy costume ideas in the video, here are some guidelines for you to come up with some of your own.
Work with what you have. Look at everyday objects strewn about your home and see what their appearance suggests. A kitchen funnel turned upside down is a great Tin Man hat! Add a gray shirt and gray sweats and you’ve got Slacker Mom’s version of a classic Wizard of Oz character.
Play around with words. Look at the objects in your home and see if their names sound like anything else. A great example is a bunch of empty cereal boxes stapled to an old T-shirt makes a great “serial” killer.
Embrace your natural state. Instead of concealing the bags under your eyes, dry-shampooing your dirty mom hair and changing into cleaner yoga pants, just go as you are. Tell everyone you’re a “Mombie.”
Or the opposite. Dig out that old cocktail dress, actually style your hair and get all made up. Your kids will wonder where you are going. Tell them you are a woman without children to take care of.
Steal your kid’s costume from last year. My child was a lion last year. I squeezed his lion outfit over my yoga clothes and said I was a radioactive mutant growing lion. The second-graders totally bought it.
Obviously, the easiest solution is a store-bought costume. Heck, my kids have been sporting those for years. With Amazon Prime, I can have thousands of different costumes to choose from that arrive in my mailbox in two days. Here are a few of our past favorites. (The links to buy are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, we make a few pennies.)
This video originally appeared on MomCaveTV. It has been used with permission.
Jennifer Weedon Palazzo is the creator/writer/and producer of Mom Cave TV, an online network of comedy shows for moms including Slummy Mummy, Double Leche, Blabbermom, and MomCave LIVE. She’s a working actress in NYC who has appeared in films, commercials, and some very off-off Broadway plays. When she’s not writing about the funny side of being a mom (for blogs like Scary Mommy, Huffington Post, and Mamalode) Jennifer can be found eating Reese’s Cups while furiously bidding on vintage clothing on eBay. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, Evan, bandleader of The Hot Sardines and their son.
