Ok, that’s out of the way. I mean, I feel so obliged to say that but it also feels like I moved to a new country as an adult and Halloween is one of their customs so I do Halloween now. I am definitely, decidedly and firmly on the side of cute Halloween tempered with historical Halloween.
So. My kids can dress up for daycare, or if C comes up with an idea that is achievable (NOT a werewolf which is what her heart desired this year), she can wear that. This year, E and S were both ghosts for daycare’s dress-up day on Thursday. Thank you, old white sheets and good scissors and the makeup I rarely use and Glenn’s makeup artistry skills.
They were all sore at me for not taking them trick or treating. I’m not sure how they actually think trick or treating works, but in our street with [doing a mental walk along our street] I think only two actual houses and all the rest apartment buildings and no-one visibly decorated for Halloween, I can’t see this as a successful venture. Not to mention the discomfort I feel about strangers getting to know my chatty, friendly, open children. No. Thank. You.
This is how Halloween happened for us this year instead.
I made a barm brack, an Irish Halloween bread. I was hoping it would be a lovely success and I could share a recipe here but it did not go brilliantly and I will be hunting for a different recipe for next time. E and S were allowed to watch Wicked on daddy’s computer while C was at school. I filled themed candy moulds with white chocolate and mango bits and Biscoff biscuits. I prepped some boo-nanas. Afternoon tea ended up being Oreos (original as well as mint) and Milo for the girls, tea and brack for me. We watched Hocus Pocus over afternoon tea and dinner. This was my first time watching it and all the girls seemed to enjoy it. C did one of her pretending to like something because she thought I wanted her to like it but actually it was too scary so there went my night.
Dinner was mummies and bread cut out into pumpkin and ghost shapes. Girls were so tired though that not all that much was eaten but apparently it was DELICIOUS because there were dots of honey holding the mummy eyes onto the pastry.
After baths, and when S was asleep already, I showed E and C how to make paper strip lanterns and we made a line of them up the hallway. Halloween craft done, plus it meant we had lovely flickering LED tea lights making the place cosy.
Girls had some of the chocolate on Saturday at morning tea, but honestly were more excited about having bonus frozen mango alongside it. Boo-nanas were a hit, as per usual, and I have been informed by C that this is our Halloween tradition. Must not skip it ever.
What a week it has been for books in our family. I admit, there has been little reading aside from one or two short ones if a girl is having trouble falling asleep. The little readers version of The Little Mermaid. We’re Going On a Bear Hunt. The lost teddy bear book with the letters inside (which, although I like the illustrations and I like that it is a Tasmanian family and I like that it has letters in envelopes which are SUCH fun, the filler bits in the story feel contrived, as if someone needed to reach a word count or – more likely – they had little elements of a story that they wanted to include and so put them into this one).
But as mentioned in Book Week in August, C’s school does Book Week not in the middle of the craziness of all that is term 3, but at the start of term 4. Which is perfect, apart from the heat that is often present which does rather have an impact on costumes. But right after school holidays is great so that when kids are bored during the school holidays, “How about you work on your Book Week costume?” can be thrown around by parents as something to do to stave off the screen time, earning eye rolls and groans and resistance to make those holidays wonderfully joyful and stress-free.
Ahem. C had the idea in August that she could be the tree from The Giving Tree. I had ideas. She had ideas. It came to the holidays and she told me she very precisely what her costume was to be. I told her my ideas. That was wrong. She wanted to wrap a cardboard box around her torso and stick some green fringing to the top. And she was desperate to win. This was a huge factor. I’m not sure what Book Week is like where you are, but last year one of the winners was a kid who was Snow White AND the seven dwarves. And the year before, a girl in a Cinderella outfit complete with tiara and something like glass shoes and she was inside a homemade cardboard pumpkin coach did NOT win. I was preparing myself for dealing with a very disappointed 7-and-a-half-year-old.
Especially as her first-born perfectionism and a healthy dose of wanting to enjoy not sharing the iPad with her sisters meant that she just did not get started on this costume. Last Sunday, I took all the girls outside with a roll of butcher paper and a bottle of green paint so we got the green paper sorted out at least, as well as making a thorough mess of the outside areas. That made for a good physical activity Monday morning, I must say. Tuesday, big talk about doing this costume before it was the night before. Wednesday, same thing. Thursday morning, she cut out some big sheets of the green paper first thing. Thursday night, I had a talk with her about look at where we are. I’m going to have my shower and then you are getting out of bed and we are making this costume together.
You know how many times she has fallen asleep before, say, 8.30pm this year? Maybe twice. One of those was, of course, Thursday night. She was asleep when I had finished showering at 8.13. Unbelievable. I did my best with this costume, and thankfully she was awake bright and early Friday morning. She ended up in a basic brown skirt/dress, my new linen long-sleeved top, and a stapled together headdress with the green paper. She had scrunched a piece of red paper into an apple, and Glenn stapled green leaves to it and tied it to a string to hang on her wrist.
There were definitely vibes of no adult intervention. But, she also looked like an elegant tree. And you know what? She won the year 2 “Best DIY Spirit” prize. We are all stoked.
Two of the judges were from the local council library, and of course they talked about the library a bit, and so of course E and S were then at me to go back to the library. This afternoon, we did. I paid the fine on all our very overdue books. We borrowed a bunch more, some of which are gold. I will delve into them more next week, I think. I’m tired.
In my Catching Up post I promised a more expansive recounting of Book Week 2025, so here it is. First up I will mention that this only covers the younger two, as C’s school does the parade in fourth term, and I love that the school has recognised that Book Week is big and also when it falls – in the middle of term 3, right after Science Week and the Brisbane show holiday which is around when the school fair also happens, plus it’s the end of winter – might overload some kids or make Book Week and the love of reading just another thing to tick off the list in the middle of a busy term.
Last year, I was probing Book Week ideas from about May. E was, after all, wanting Room on the Broom every single night from about then. She didn’t waver, and I made her a skirt and a cape for her to be the witch. Which, happily, doubled up for her Halloween costume later in the year. Win. S was tricky last year, but she did have a tendency to pick the Bob Bilby book, so having made beautiful items for E, I hemmed a length of light purple (lavender? Lilac?) material, cut a hole for the head, attached a pink panel, and sewed up a bit of each side while C helped me put bilby ears on a head band. Very simple and quick and didn’t quite make it through the day but that’s ok.
This year, I only started thinking about this in late June, early July. Just a question here or there when I’ve read the same story multiple times AND can see how I might manage a costume for a character. This year, I was sure I would be sending a princess along. E’s choice for a little while was Belle from Beauty and The Beast. The village Belle? (Which I can totally manage, no problem). No. Yellow Belle. The ballgown Belle. Ah. Not so simple. Pausing on that idea. Then I started asking S. Are you Slinky Malinki? NO, I’M S! Are you a princess? NO, I’M S! (Put that on repeat for maybe another five characters). Are you… Anna? (Pause, in which I see her straighten her back and feel E change next to me). YES I’M ANNA! E: mummy? Mummy? I’ve changed my mind I want to be Elsa.
Rewind a few years, to C’s first Book Week at daycare, aged about 17 months, I guess. A parade of movie characters had me rolling my eyes and internally raging against dress up events and reading losing its meaning, yada yada yada. My kid would always go as a real book character. I’ll pause while you have a good chuckle.
In my defence, we already had a very simple Frozen book, “I Am Elsa”, but I had a look in Kmart for any others. “The big Frozen book”, as it’s called in our family, was found and bought and has been read most days. Yes, Anna and Elsa are movie characters. But also yes, they are also in books that are thoroughly enjoyed by my girls so who’s to get snooty about it? Ahem.
In any event, before I had started any sewing, E did another “Mummy, wait. I changed my mind. I want to be a ballerina for Book Week”. Okay… we’ll have to find a book with a ballerina in it, then. “Yes. Can you write me one please”. Hahahahahahaha no. As we already had ballet costumes ready to go, this choice was a relief. We’ve borrowed books from the library with ballerinas in them so I wasn’t going to argue or fight over this one.
Last Friday, armed with a screenshot of a Frozen cake topper, I took E and S to Spotlight to find fabrics. They were quite wonderful in finding material to match the colours of the skirt, the bodice, the bag – wait. The bag? Anna has a bag in that cake topper so mummy can make a bag for the costume. We also found a ribbon to edge the bodice and pom pom trim for the cape. Exciting. Extra information, I had been allocated more than my stated capacity for extra work (you know, in my paid job), and taking on definitely one sewing project, maybe two or three rather heightened my stress level but also my organisational level but also entirely reduced my capacity to do basic household tasks like sorting washing.
Daycare does two dress-up days for Book Week, as not every kid is enrolled every day. This year, dressing up could be, if they wished, Wednesday or Thursday. With the sewing I was doing, Thursday. Just Thursday. Thursday was great. Tuesday evening, E gets home and tells me with a very serious face – the sort of face I imagine she’ll have when I mess up the school calendar and think the science project is due next week instead of tomorrow – that they had to dress up tomorrow. Wednesday. Noooo. You can dress up Wednesday OR Thursday. OUR TEACHERS TOLD US TOMORROW. Thankfully, the Little Red Riding Hood costume I had bought for C when she was this age – the week that S was born and I caved and bought something instead of making but thank goodness it gets a lot of wear – was clean and wearable and still fitting E. Also thankfully, S didn’t insist on wearing a costume that day, too. Also, I love that we have two Little Red Riding Hood books.
Wednesday night, I finished sewing on the bodice ribbon and sewing the cape together and adding trim and doing buttons. (If you’ve been paying attention, I did not have time to make the bag.) I went to bed just before midnight, thoroughly happy with myself and my creation, and itching to see S’s reaction and wearing it in the morning. First thing in the morning I said, “It’s Book Week dress up today!” S: “I go as Mickey Mouse”. No. Noyoudon’t. When S saw the Anna outfit though, she did a gasp and “Is that my Anna?” One. Happy. Mummy. Getting dressed, and E got into her ballet costume fairly easily on her own while I put S’s dress over her head. S saw E. I tried to do up the snaps on the Anna dress. She refused to let me. “I WANT TO WEAR MY BALLET!” But you’ve been wanting to be Anna for ages! I knew I was tired and more invested in a dress than perhaps I should be so I walked out to take some deep breaths. Glenn came in to save the day with early birthday presents (dinosaur heads with a lollipop inside) and S was then more than happy to wear her Anna dress and cape and look at the love hearts and pockets and IT’S GOT POM POM POM POMS!
I am happy to report that she was in character for much of our trip to daycare. I managed to get some lovely action-in-nature shots of her. We opened the door to her daycare room and were met with a sea of colourful polyester and I felt even better. One of her birthday presents was a purchased Elsa tutu dress which she wore all of Friday and Sunday but then Sunday evening it came off and she wanted her Anna dress on. And the cape has been worn several times – I mean, who wouldn’t want to wear a pom-pom trimmed cape?!
There have been many articles this year about Book Week and is it losing its meaning and is it too much stress on parents and kids. In those years when I wasn’t aware when it would be, I always got a surprise – but then managed a costume with what we had around. Looking ahead and finding out when it will be and planning costumes, though, is part of the happiness of parenting for me. One thing I absolutely love about Book Week is talking about books with my girls for weeks or months beforehand, and finding out more about THEM. What style of book are they into. How do they imagine an outfit for this character will look. If we were in that world, what would they have around them. I absolutely love this insight into the brain of each of my girls. Thank you, Book Week.
The Stuff of Our Life 