How to have the best Halloween ever
I don't know about you, but I dread taking my children Halloween shopping every year. The checklist is always a drag:
- Go to a big box store
- Dig through whatever costumes remain
- Blow $60 on a cheaply made costume that'll get thrown away
- Get begged to buy some plastic lawn ornaments
- Blow another $100 on those
Ugh.
A few years ago, I realized it didn't have to be that way. My daughter loves scaring people on Halloween, and we began to get inventive. We found that it was simple to create a costume that inhabited the uncanny valley - and that we could freak people out by simply standing still in the middle of the street. It was awesome - and the costumes were reusable items we had lying around the house or that we spent a few bucks on at a vintage mall.
Halloween can be a blast when we create costumes that are reused and reusable. Up until the 1960s or so, costumes weren't store bought but handmade - and they were uniformly terrifying.
We are lured into spending hundreds of dollars on decor that's been shipped from around the world and made to be thrown away - when we have an opportunity to instead create unique props for neighborhood nightmares - such as the antique operating table pictured below or perhaps some whacked out taxidermy.
So - if you want to really have fun this holiday, I'd like to invite you to come in this weekend. We're open today until 7pm, then 10-6 this weekend. We have nearly 150 people who are very good at finding cool stuff that have loaded up their spaces with costumes, vintage clothing, vintage Halloween decor, and everything imaginable that is vintage, antique, or collectible.
I hope to see you soon.
- Chad
