It's My Favorite Time of Year

Fall is my favorite time of year for many reasons, but mostly because of Halloween, changing leaves and apple bobbing. Oh, and animals in costumes.

I guess I must have done something good in my youth or childhood because this seems to be the Halloween that just wouldn't end.

(yay!)

Halloween started early this year with my work's annual Halloween costume contest. My boss offered a cash prize of $500.00 for best costume, so competition was pretty fierce. I didn't speak to my colleague Christina for a week leading up to the contest, as I find psychological warfare can be a very effective tool in winning costume contests (it can also be a handy tool in conflict resolution with your roommates--try it sometime).

To my surprise, we both showed up in holiday-themed outfits. I was a Christmas tree (one of Velvet's old costumes, circa 2008) and Christina was a less superior holiday elf creature. Sadly, we were the only employees who dressed up and the $500 cash prize was eliminated. We each received three (3) candy bars instead.

As an added bonus (I know, what could top the candy bars?!), we already have our office holiday card picked out. Client relationships are very important to us.

So going into Halloween weekend with already 3 candy bars in my pocket, I was obviously very excited. My roommates Heather, Velvet and I were heading to a Halloween house party on Friday night. We were a little wary because it was a "costumes optional" Halloween party, which really makes ZERO sense at all. We laughed to ourselves on the way there, picturing us walking into the crowded party and discovering that we were the only ones in costumes. Oh, how we laughed at that thought. Can you even imagine it?! We were so silly. Ha!

And the funny thing is, that's pretty much exactly what happened.

Well, some people had "costumes" on, but more of the "no-effort-required" type costume, like the placing of red plastic devil horns on your head and then declaring yourself Satan. Those types of costumes just don't fly with us.

This year my costume was a sexy turkey. As you may have noticed, all female costumes on Halloween are supposed to be turned into "sexified" versions of the original model. So instead of being a boring respectful nun, you'd be a sexy, so-wrong-that-it's-still-wrong nun. Or instead of being a skeleton, you're a sexy skeleton. It's really such a great and fun tradition which accurately represents the true meanings of Halloween. Heather and I are quite comfortable with our sexuality and therefore dressed as a sexy raccoon and sexy turkey. We were going to try to be sexy grandmas but struggled with the correct amount of wrinkled cleavage to show. Next year.

See? It was some hot stuff.

You would think with being so sexy and all that people would have been too intimidated to talk to Heather. That was not the case. All weekend long she fielded questions and comments like: "Are you a squirrel? "Aw, you're a cute cat." "Why would you dress up as a rat?" "Hey, I was a mouse last year!" etc. etc. etc. Annoying for her, entertaining for us.

Velvet had to rush to the party straight from work so she quickly whipped up a costume. She dressed in all gold and was a "gold star." Sadly, she ended up looking a bit like a prostitute, but like a high-end, sparkly one. Then our friend Jason arrived dressed as a pimp, which really didn't help her case. Soon Velvet just gave in and went as Jason's main lady, or, as he referred to her loudly the entire night "his five-dolla holla." Such a sweet guy.

Five dolla holla.

And then we put aside all costume woes and danced the night away in a sexy dance competition.

Scary things happen on Halloween.

The next night, we had a gathering at our house before going out dancing.

It was absolutely insane.

And sadly, we don't seem to have any pictures of Velvet's actual costume, which was a saloon girl. It turned out really nicely, which you can't accurately tell from the above picture. It was pretty much identical to these:

She did an excellent job.

My friend Eric also had an impressive homemade costume this year. He went as Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.

After noting the resemblance to Frosted Flakes' Tony the Tiger ("They'reeeeeeee great!"), our friend Leslie remarked that Eric was more like Thomas the Tiger, a generic cereal knock-off. I'm sure Eric was pleased by this.

I adore this picture of dear Thomas the Tiger.

Green Lantern, Russell Brand, Mad Scientist, Tigger, Rat

(and Heather's decorative BATS which will remain hung in our living room until Christmas at least)

Then we all drank, danced, made some new friends, came home, made drunken pasta, etc.

...And on the fourth day of Halloween (technically November 1st, but whatever), we had the most fun of all. How do you top house parties, dancing in a club in a turkey costume and eating lots of candy? It's pretty easy, actually.

YOU PLAY DODGEBALL IN HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

My entire dodgeball team (we're called Hold Your Balls, do you get the subtle joke in that?) dressed up in costumes and proceeded to awkwardly play and WIN both of our games of the night.

When we arrived and saw that no one on the team had bailed or flaked on wearing a costume, I felt like my heart would explode with pride.

I think the 'fro lasted for about 1 round before it kept flying off mid-throw.

People on the bench alternated between singing the Mario theme song for Adam and the Indiana Jones theme for E.

TIGER TIME (well, Tigger and a zebra, but for the purposes of sounding intimidating, it's TIGER TIME).

Honestly, I think part of the reason that we won both games (besides our incredibly complex strategies and the fact that we're all on steroids) is that the other teams were kind of weirded out by our costumes and enthusiasm. Get used to it guys, we're doing this EVERY WEEK now.

WHEEEEE!

I hope you all had terrifying Halloweens. Did you have awesome costumes? Meet any celebs? Dress up your pets? Tell me all about it.