Privilege Blog

What Scares The High WASP Most, Or, Saturday Morning at 8:18am

A GhostWhat scares a High WASP most? The desire to make Art. Perhaps because it in turn makes clear you are trying and you care.

Happy Hallowe’en! Let’s keep the apostrophe but give away all our candy!

Oh, and if you’re in the mood for absurd crafts, a recent jack o’lantern hack. For stories, remembering my kids’ costumes past. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

 

17 Responses

  1. Very cute ghost! I made all my kids’ costumes, too, and when they outgrew them, I took them to the children’s consignment shop where they sold out right away. Today, my daughter buys all her son’s costumes at Costco where they have a fabulous selection. She doesn’t know the first thing about sewing nor does she have the time, but it sure was fun dreaming up costumes and figuring out how to make them. Happy Hallowe’en!

    1. @Jane, I love that your costumes had additional incarnations. I couldn’t sew either, BTW, but I could wield a glue gun, so I did, with only a few burns. And sometimes friends with sewing machines helped out, executing my ideas with great good will.

  2. Happy Hallowe’en!
    We are not celebrating
    We have biggest carnival just before lent
    I know to sew only by hand but made all my son’s costumes alone,with some tricks,too
    Dottoressa

    1. O,yes! Most famous are(not so famous as in Brasil or Venice,Italy,but still) in Samobor,small town near Zagreb,and in Rijeka and Opatija on Adriatic coast. It is in February,as it is in winter we don’t wear thongs :-),but children and adults have beautiful masks. Day before Ash Wednesday it is official Carnival and something like your Hallowe’en,tricks or treat!
      Dottoressa

    2. The southern Dutch city of Maastricht has a great carnival in early spring as well, where people seriously dress up and ride floats down the street! I remember a large contingent dedicated to Bob Ross, he of the “happy little trees” :)

      (This part of the Netherlands is heavily influenced by Catholicism, so those traditions still remain.)

  3. Re: art: if you don’t try, you can’t fail or be misunderstood. This is a fairly potent reason to not make such leaps.

    But there are worse things than failing or being misunderstood, and entirely avoiding the possibility of failure is probably one of them in itself.

  4. Did you draw that ghost? I love it. I used to love making up and executing (within reason) my daughter’s costumes, and I also used to go to a fair number of adult Halloween parties. I feel like home parties for adults (of our age) are over, but that’s a whole other subject…..

    1. @Kathy, I did, with the Skitch app on my iPad! Glad you like it:). And I hear elsewhere too that grownups don’t have dinner parties any more. I have them for my family, but I guess you’re right, not for anyone else any more:(

    2. Maybe it’s because our mother’s used to do all the family and holiday events, and now we do them? I feel like I entertain a lot, but yes, just for family.

  5. We gave away all our candy by 7:45.

    I used to make my son’s costumes. Now I make costumes for my dogs!

    1. @AK, 7:45! I wasn’t finished until just now, around 9:31. I turned off the porch light. Still have candy though;).

  6. There has been discussion over the increasing presence of Hallowe’en in Australia (or at least here in Western Australia), and the general conclusion is commercialisation rather than any understanding and/or support of the history of the celebration.

    My daughter did attend a Hallowe’en party at her Scout Hall, that included all age levels of the organisation, and was well catered (by crafty parents) with great costumes (by crafty participants). I baulk at attending, at least in part, because I am scared by the thought of costuming myself.

    We opted instead to continue learning about our local Indigenous culture by attending the Wardanji Festival, which celebrates the Noongah peoples, the ocean, and their rich history. It was joyous to see youngsters participating in dancing, singing and story-telling alongside their elders, after the misguided (to say the least) attempts by successive governments since colonisation to sideline the culture and languages of the many first nations peoples.

    As a result though, no-one was home to see if anyone knocked on our door! However we all enjoyed the night, regardless of how it was spent.

  7. It seems that Hallowe’en has taken on new life in the past few years. Everyone, everywhere dresses up in costumes. It’s de rigeur at workplaces and in the mall etc etc. Not sure I’m enjoying the frenzy. Must be the Instagram effect?? Loved it more back when we kids made our own costumes. Or dreamed up the idea, then made them with Mum’s help. Or maybe I’m just the Hallowe’en Grinch. I am keeping the apostrophe, though.

  8. Halloween as a kid in Wisconsin was never all that fun. For one thing, we could have snow by that time, easily. And my mom always made me wear a parka over my costume. For years I went as a “gypsy in a parka.”

Comments are closed.