What's your favorite Halloween costume? I won a large costume contest in my early-20s as a urinal - as the night proceeded and the drinking accumulated, I had to be vigilant against the easily deceived.
The most intricate, colorful and serious costumed gathering I can recall was when I DJ'd a Halloween party for the Hollywood Art Directors Guild - those people did not take costuming lightly, I'll have you know. Oddly, there was much cross-dressing.
The National Retail Federation has just released the results of a survey of children's costumes for this year:
Top Halloween Costumes for Kids, 2004
Rank
Percent
# of Children
Spiderman
1
8.4%
2,150,116
Princess
2
7.2%
1,837,372
Witch
3
5.0%
1,290,069
Vampire
4
3.5%
899,139
Monster
5
3.2%
820,953
SpongeBob
6
2.9%
742,767
Ninja
7
2.6%
664,581
Athlete (Football, Baseball, etc.)
8
2.1%
547,302
Ghost
9
2.1%
547,302
Power Rangers
10
2.1%
547,302
Angel
11
1.7%
430,023
Pumpkin
12
1.5%
390,930
Batman
13
1.4%
351,837
Yu Gi Oh
14
1.4%
351,837
Pop Star
15
1.2%
312,744
Barbie
16
1.1%
273,651
Harry Potter Character
17
1.1%
273,651
Pirate
18
1.1%
273,651
Clown
19
0.9%
234,558
Firefighter
20
0.9%
234,558
What an interesting conglomeration of hopes, dreams, fears and popular culture. Survey results also indicate that 54.1 percent of consumers plan to buy a costume for Halloween this year, spending an average of $28.11. With an estimated $3.12 billion to be spent on the holiday, Halloween ranks as the sixth-largest spending holiday of the year.
But while it is only the sixth in spending, Halloween has come to dominate the entire month of October with haunted houses and decorations springing up by the last week of September, making it second in cultural dominance only to Christmas.
Our little princess will be a convincing, if blonde, Snow White in a costume made by my mother-in-law, who is quite talented at such things.
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
My best effort presented me a few years ago as Uncle Fester. It's a role I was born to play.
I took the opportunity of being dressed up at work and carrying around sticks of dynamite all day to stop the CEO and ask him about that raise.
I did not get the raise. Yet if I had in fact blown Telamon up with my road flares, it would have been ME that was considered the bad guy.
2 - Evil Jungle Princess
Here's a great halloween costume idea.
Go as a drunken Bush. It will scare everyone, even conservatives.
All you need is a Bush mask and a bottle and some moderate drunken acting skills.