Tuesday
Halloween Week 2016 // Ghost of Halloween Past
Yes, it's that time of the year again! When Becky Deadbug pops up and takes control of the blog for the last week of October. Last year, I was woefully unprepared so I've taken steps this year to ensure that doesn't happen again! In fact, I may have prepared a little too well because Halloween week is more like Halloween-thirteen-days. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it though! Let's call it Halloween Fortnight. To launch my Halloween-thirteen-days Fortnight this year, I'm going to take you on a little trip through memory lane and share some of my costumes from Halloweens past. Warning: Scary photo quality ahead!
1999
When I was 11, I decided I wanted a real grown-up Halloween party. For some reason, this ended up being held in my grandparents' house 10 miles away from all my school friends. Probably because my mum decided she didn't want six excitable children screaming around her house, which is fair enough. My brother and I were each allowed to invite two guests, so I chose my two best friends- Katie and Kerry. It's worth noting at this point that, although we all went to the same school, Katie and Kerry didn't really know each other. Katie had been my best friend since actual forever and I'd only met Kerry a few weeks earlier in DT class. Still, the three of us agreed we were going to dress as sexy devils. I spent ages hunting the perfect tight black skirt that I could roll up to impossibly indecent lengths and spectacular devil horns, topped off with black eyeshadow and lashings of red lipstick. Yep, I was a sexy devil alright. Did I mention I was 11? What the hell, past Becky? I couldn't wait to see Katie and Kerry in their matching devil outfits... then they both completely shafted me and turned up as mediocre witches. Ultimate betrayal. Still, it was a good party. I'd planned to play Murder in the Dark in the garden but we ended up with torrential rain so instead my Grandma and Auntie Jacqueline put bedsheets over their heads and hid in the bedroom. Far from the super cool, mature party I wanted, it was pretty quaint, but it was also really cute looking back now.
2005
Halloweens passed by quite merrily until 2005. I don't really remember any of them, except one time when I had vague ambitions of being a spider complete with six extra moveable limbs. Then I discovered emo and oh boy, Halloween was exciting after that. In 2005, Kerry of witch-betrayal fame threw a Halloween party (this is weird because after our first year at school we didn't really see each other much- nothing to do with the Halloween party, I swear!- and then after leaving school we suddenly became really close again for a few months). I went to Kerry's party with Marie, who was my best friend by this time (apparently I switched best friends a lot) and our new college friend Steph. Because we were into My Chemical Romance in a big way, I went as Helena and Marie dressed as Frank Iero. Steph went as some sort of fairy thing because she was always a bit quirky like that. Marie's mum took this photo and I absolutely hated it. I'd done the whole foundation lips thing to look dead but instead it just made me look like I had a five o'clock shadow. Anyway, I don't remember much about Kerry's party so I guess it wasn't as good as my one 6 years previously. And I didn't have to stitch anyone up as the solitary pre-teen sexy devil.
2006
2006 was even more fun because I was hopelessly depressed and hated absolutely everything. Except Halloween, of course. I had two different Halloween parties in one weekend because I was a party animal like that. This was also the year that a Greenpeace charity guy stopped me in the street and said he loved my costume when actually I was just wearing my normal clothes lolz. I decided to dress as some sort of emo dead jilted bride and, for reasons that I still don't know, a zombie cheerleader. I think I just wanted to play with pom poms. My boyfriend had broken up with me about six weeks earlier but I went to the parties with him still and was thoroughly miserable through the whole thing. Oh, to be young again!
2008
In 2008, I left my costume to the last minute so had to go out on Halloween and find something in town. There was only one costume left... A ladybird. Yep, I was a sexy ladybird. The worst thing? I wasn't even the only one! There were two other sexy ladybirds in the club that night! I hope they had the same problem as I did, otherwise there were actually two people who thought sexy ladybird was legitimately a great Halloween costume!
2011
This was the year I achieved my greatest feat of all time. For context, the club we go to for Halloween has a huge party every year. It's a rock club so they really go all out for it- it's the busiest night of the year, tickets sell out weeks in advance and they have a massive costume competition. It's a Big Deal. Marie and I had been toying with the idea of a couples costume and eventually took inspiration from our favourite film- Wayne's World. For some reason, Marie wanted to be Wayne and I was more than happy to let her because everybody knows Garth is the best! It might look like a simple costume but I cannot tell you the effort that went into finding an exact replica of Garth's Aerosmith t-shirt and the precise type of blue checked shirt. Although it wasn't a spooky costume, it went down an absolute storm and we ended up coming second place in the competition. We lost to a guy who dressed as someone from Assassin's Creed or something. Apparently he was really good so it wasn't too disheartening to miss out on first place. In fact, the worst thing about that night was that the DJ had lost his copy of Bohemian Rhapsody so we couldn't recreate the car scene. Gutted.
2012
Buoyed up by the previous year's success, we thought we'd go as another pair. This time we may have been a little too niche- Cosmo and Wanda. Back in our teenage years, we would spend hours watching Fairly Odd Parents at Marie's so it was the perfect costume for us. Unfortunately, only about two people knew who we were. The effort we put into this outfit- even creating a Timmy Turner from scratch (who, by the way, is currently hanging from his neck on the back of my under-stairs cupboard door)- was probably a little OTT for one night, especially as we were terrified of losing or damaging him in the club after all the work we'd put in. It was totally worth it though, even if only for our massive sense of self-achievement. It was also the first Halloween I blogged about with some truly terrible photography.
2014
This was a tricky year because Rich and I had booked tickets to see Henning Wehn the same night as the Halloween party. Marie had to pick me up from the theatre so we could straight to the club, so I didn't have time to dress up properly (unless I wanted to sit in the theatre with fake blood all over my face). For this reason, I had to devise a costume that was quick and easy, and went for the ultimate old-school look: A ghost. One bedsheet, two eyeholes, sorted. It was met with mixed reaction. Some people thought it was brilliant, others told me off for "cheating" (I told you, this party is a big deal. We take it seriously!) Personally, I absolutely loved it. It was hot and heavy but there were so many plus points that I ended up writing a whole post about why everyone should go out clubbing as a ghost.
Of course, there were way more Halloween costumes than this but I don't have photos of them all, or the time to write about every single one. Think of this as my Halloween highlights. This year, I've got a huge amount of Halloween costumes and spooky-themed outfits prepared and I cannot wait to share them with you over the next thirteen days!
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This is amazing. Truly amazing. Laughted so much reading it and I'm genuinely so impressed by the costumes. Well done. A* xxx
ReplyDeleteGweni www.gbeauty.co.uk
Ha, your historical Halloween costumes are amazing! The ghost costume was incredible regardless
ReplyDeleteMel ★ www.meleaglestone.co.uk
Ah I love the Wayne's World costume! I love Halloween too, but it's been a while since I've dressed up unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI laughed a fair bit at the 2014 costume, love it!
ReplyDeleteRosy | Sparkles of Light Blog
The Garth costume is utterly brilliant! I am seriously jealous of that one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, although it's not Halloween-related, the sexy ladybird reminds me of when I was backpacking in New Zealand and our tour group was staying at a pub where they had a fancy dress night. As we were there in December, the theme was Christmas, and en route to this pub we stopped off at the NZ equivalent of Wilko to get the costumes. First thing we were hit with was Mrs Claus outfits at $10 a go. Cut to a few hours later, and pretty much every girl on this bus (apart from me - I went as a Christmas tree) walks into the pub dressed as Mrs Claus!
I love your Halloween posts! The ghost costume is my favourite :)
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing! Love Halloween themed posts, and really enjoyed seeing your past Halloween costumes and experiences. My mum wouldn't let me celebrate Halloween, at all. No trick or treating, no parties, no costumes, no decorations. She was hung up on it being an American tradition that had made it's way over here? I don't know. Weird. So I missed out on all the fun of dressing up and going out with friends. Now I'm an adult with my own house, I look forward to decorating it every year and welcoming trick or treaters! x www.aimeeraindropwrites.co.uk x
ReplyDeleteAaw that's so sad! I went to school with someone who had the same thing. Glad you're making up for it now!
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