Countless times before I had children I wondered what kind of mother I’d be. Having kids changes a person to a degree and people have no idea how they’re really going to act in a situation until they’re in it. For instance, I’ve never really cared about dressing up for Halloween. I don’t dislike it, it’s just never been a big deal for me to get dressed up. I don’t have a Halloween mother. You know the ones that decorate the house, front lawn and even dress up? In fact I think she actually hates the holiday, so that probably had an impact on me growing up. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually dressed up my entire life. Then I had kids.
Last year, for their first Halloween, they obviously wouldn’t be going door to door trick or treating. In fact they had a little cold that day and the temperature started getting cool in Virginia, but I felt like if I didn’t dress them up I would regret it. Inevitably one day they’re going to wonder what they wore and ask see to pictures. I couldn’t disappoint their future selves. Tigers are my favorite animal. We called them our little tiger cubs early on. These would be adorable costumes! I ordered them on Amazon with plenty of time and of course the wrong sizes arrived. Hell hath no fury like a mother whose kids’ first Halloween is about to be ruined. Oh dear, the poor Amazon customer service rep that had to deal with me. Fortunately, I called back when I calmed down and I got the costumes delivered in time.
All this from a mama who supposedly didn’t care about Halloween?
Fast forward to this year. There were four various Halloween events here over the last week! FOUR. I knew I had to up my game, and not just for the Gents but for myself too. My historical lack of Halloween spirit was not going to fly here. Being surrounded by people into it definitely helps. The moms are pretty serious here as the Halloween conversations started two months ago. And socially, who wants to be known as the mama that doesn’t dress up?
Being in Riyadh adds a whole new level of complexity with Halloween because you need to plan far enough in advance for delivery and with a buffer in case you need to make last minute tweaks. I knew that I wanted to dress the Gents as Clark Kent and Superman, but of course I got sidetracked with other things, namely planning for Lyon, that I dropped the ball on ordering everything with the necessary time. Everything I needed for all of our costumes would arrive while we were in Lyon, only giving me a week to fine tune. This could present a challenge. I was mainly concerned about C&R. Not as if they know what’s going on, but I really wanted to make sure they had an awesome costume! And I’m not going to disappoint their future selves when they ask to see pics of Halloween in Riyadh.
After we returned from Lyon and collected our packages from the Embassy I needed to make sure all of the costume items arrived and fit. I pulled out C’s costume from the bag and it looked like it was 3 sizes too big. I almost lost it. This was not happening again! I ended up trying the costume on him later and realized that it fit him better than I thought. It’s a little big, but it works! Halloween disaster averted.
I had a costume in mind for myself, but J wasn’t crazy about it and last minute vetoed it. I won’t say what it was because I’m going to try to get him on board with it next year, but his now required some last minute creative thinking. Oh and J dropped the ball on his costume as well. Rather than coming up with a costume I decided it was time to try my hand at make-up. I love the look of calaveras, or sugar skulls as they’re also known. Fortunately for me my office building is connected to a mall. Between a quick trip to Claire’s and Boots I was covered. And I got some black kitten ears for Thursday night steak night, which kicked off the week’s events, followed by the adults only party on Friday. There were two different trick or treating events, but we opted to bring the boys to the one at the Embassy.
In total we ended up participating in three of the events, all of which I was in some form of character, and brought the Gents to one. I feel a little bad that we didn’t do more with them, but they’re still too young to really understand or miss out on what’s going on. And at least they got to dress up and had a lot of fun. Each time I got in makeup/costume I was excited to see the Gents reactions. They loved it, all the while smiling and giggling…even at my calavera face. I do feel good that I’m a mother who is in the spirit of these holidays, because I didn’t think I would be. Yes, the boys are a great reason to dress up but I also think that because we’re in Riyadh the social aspect makes me want to participate. Either way, I’ve pleasantly surprised myself! Now on to planning for next Halloween.