It's Out of Control!!!

This whole Halloween thing has gone way too far. Walking around the neighborhood I saw entire graveyards, trees festooned with orange lights, multiple ghools hanging from porches and ,my favorite, a tacky Italianate sculpture that is now sporting a cape and a mask.

When did this happen? When did Halloween become a money maker for anyone except the candy companies? The big Halloween decoration at my house when I was young was a sheet that was stuffed with leaves, tied with a string and hung in the tree in front of the house about an hour before the doorbell started ringing.  Now there are whole blocks decorated from top to bottom, rivaling Christmas.

After the ceremonial ghost hanging we went inside to blacken corks for the requisite hobo 5 day old beard or commandeered a particular yellow skirt of my mother's, a kerchief, and some earrings and voila! A Gypsy. Today we can't even call them Gypsies, they are Roma. Even the pets are getting into the act.

" 19th hole boys"?

Celebrity costumes are always a hit.  Last year it was Sarah Palin, I suppose this year it will be Richard Heene or the Octo Mom.  Some celebrities don't know when to leave well enough alone.  Octo Mom herself has a costume that she put on for the paprazzi the other day. 

The wombanizer as a pregnant nun.  Almost too good to be true.

My daughter visited one of those pop-up Halloween stores the other day to purchase an angel costume for the 1st grader she babysits.  $38  for one of those bagged costumes!!  What's the matter with a hanger and some cheesecloth?  The child's father thought nothing of it and asked my daughter how much we used to pay for costumes.  PAY?   Are you kidding?  I made a couple of red satin capes one year and they became devils.  In subsequent years they were Little Red Riding Hood, a magician, Superman, and some vague representation of a nasty Dick Cheney.

These days you've got to be careful about being P.C.  No more Indians, either American or Asian, I think pirates are on the cusp.  Even President Obama and Condoleeza Rice are verbotten.  Once I was a flamenco dancer.  Think that Europeans are still OK.  So let's recap.

North Americans - OK

South Americans - not allowed

Europeans - OK

Asians - not allowed

Australians - OK if immigrants (?)

Antarcticans - penguins OK

Africans - never, under any circumstance

So in the end it probably safest to just dress your pet up and walk him or her around the neighborhood. 

                                                                          

Balloon dog .