Thanks for being here for another issue of It’s Like This. Listen for a throwback theme song on the read-aloud version – it’ll get stuck in your head, too!
I won’t dress this up as anything other than what it is.
This group costume was not my son’s idea. He does not share my enthusiasm for Halloween.
He might like seeing the orange and purple lights and spooky decorations in our neighborhood, but he has no interest in helping me decorate our house with jack o’lanterns, window silhouettes, spiderwebs and skulls.
He definitely likes that candy gets handed out every place we go, and he notices other people’s costumes, but he doesn’t really care about dressing up himself.
He indulged me when he was younger – he let me dress him as Woody or Jack Skellington or Spongebob, a firefighter or a basketball player. Did he ever really like this tradition? Some years, it seemed so. Some years, clearly not (he is not smiling in that adorable dinosaur costume I made for him in Kindergarten).
As he got older, the chances of him willingly dressing up diminished, and that’s OK. Not everyone is into Halloween.
Costumes are optional at the annual Halloween party at his day program. It’s a nice evening for families – parents can relax in a no-pressure space where their young adult kids are already comfortable and can be themselves – or become a favorite character if they like dressing up.
My son would absolutely be welcome at this party without a costume.
But that’s less fun for me. I still can’t help cajoling him into dressing up in some way, to be involved in the fun, but I try to remind myself that we don’t always share the same definition of “fun” – and it’s stressful enough for him to go to a social event without adding rules about dressing a certain way.
This year, I saw the potential for an easy costume for him.
A way that he could participate in the dressing up without actually dressing up.
Since he’s sporting this new goatee, and he only ever wants to wear t-shirts, he’s already a decent match for Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
He just needed a few “accessories.”
So, I built him a costume – by dressing ourselves.
I found a Velma-esque skirt in my closet, picked up an orange turtleneck, large black glasses, and sensible black shoes. I dyed some knee-high socks orange and dug out an old magnifying glass.
My husband agreed to dress as Fred. I added a blue collar and orange scarf to a white shirt and, finding that a blonde wig was too hot, he let me bleach his hair.
I even covered a purse in Mystery Machine fabric as a carrier for our plush Scooby Doo.
We were missing Daphne, but I figured maybe her disappearance was the mystery our group needed to solve.
With this little project, I was able to reclaim the creative joy I find in this holiday, while my son was still able to wear his same old clothes.
Our Shaggy was a little stressed before leaving the house, as is often the case when we’re heading somewhere out of our regular routine, and when he’s asked to change his clothes mid-day, no matter how comfortable and familiar.
But once at the party, he made the rounds to the various rooms, spinning his beads, and seemed to enjoy seeing his friends and staff dressed in their costumes.
He didn’t want to create the Halloween craft, or dance to the monster mash, or participate in the scavenger hunt.
But, of course, he returned again and again to the tables piled with cookies and treats.
I was able to talk to a few friends in very short bursts before he decided social time was up – we probably drove longer, there and back, than we actually stayed.
But hey, I had fun preparing for the party, anyway.
In hindsight, my kid took on the persona of Shaggy pretty well.
Surrounded by monsters and ghouls…
A bit nervous and more prone to bolt than his mystery-solving friends (but always included in the group’s meddling activities, anyway)…
And, gobbling up Scooby Snacks every chance he got.
Yeah, that’s about right.
Scooby Doo theme song: https://archive.org/details/tvtunes_7494