Call me lame, but I've never really had the Halloween spirit.
I blame it on a costume fail when I was younger.
I was dressed up as a dice, walking up a hill in my grandpa's neighborhood.
(Yes, a dice. You can quit laughing now...)
As I turned the corner, someone hollered, "Hey, look at that lady bug!"
Apparently my super creative box-costume was confused with a lame polka-dotted pest.
My 1990's costume fail quickly diminished any enthusiasm I had left for dressing up. And let's be honest, I'd rather just eat pass out handfuls of Kit Kats and Twix bars.
But as a mother, I'm really trying to get in the pumpkin-carving, house-decorating, costume-wearing Halloween spirit.
I want my daughters to enjoy dressing up and getting their cheeks pinched for being so dang cute.
Easy to do, right?
Wrong.
This whole costume-shopping experience has proven to be its own Halloween nightmare of sorts -- not because of scary costumes, but because of this:
What's wrong with this screen shot of SpiritHalloween.com, you ask?
Oh, nothing... Except for the fact that EVERY CHILD here appears to be white.
There's no child on the entire page of baby costumes that even remotely resembles two of my daughters.
Click. Click. REMOVE.
The Supergirl costume that would've looked super adorable on my 1-year old is out of my shopping cart because frankly, I don't want to do business at a place that isn't inclusive with its advertising.
Off to PartyCity.com, I go.
Oh, but wait:
What about the Halloween Express infant section, you ask?
Take. A. Wild. Guess.
Or just see for yourself:
Want to take a gander at OrientalTrading.com?
Go ahead:
Store.
After store. After store.
All white kids.
I mean, seriously. Come on.
Are white kids the only kids that dress up for Halloween? Is it wrong to expect stores to incorporate more than just white people in their advertising and marketing?
Until costume shops can get it right, I'll just keep tying tulle into tutus and hot-gluing googly eyes onto onesies to make our own.
I've done it before with these Cookie Monster and Elmo costumes:
And I'll do it again.
Because I'm determined to make Halloween fun for my girls, and the last thing they should have to do is smile in costumes marketed for only white kids.
A version of this piece was previously published on ShelleySkuster.com.
