One Halloween Theme for Three Kids Doesn't Work Here

My sister Katie in Phoenix forwarded me a roundup of stress-free Halloween tips last week, and one line made me read it twice. If your children are different ages, it said, pick one theme and dress the whole family in it. Everybody matches, you buy in bulk, you get one photo.

I don't buy it, because a theme means one person at my table had the idea and the other two are wearing it. Ben isn't quite three and would cheerfully be a pumpkin or a dishwasher or a pumpkin that's also a dishwasher. Lily is eight and has opinions about what a costume is for. Caleb is eleven and has informed me, twice, that he is too old. Put a single theme on those three and I've bought two costumes nobody asked for, which is the most expensive way to do this no matter what the price tag says.

The second piece of advice was to buy them all and save yourself the evening, since thirty dollars apiece beats your time. Three at thirty is ninety dollars. The National Retail Federation's survey this fall put the average planned Halloween spend at $115.14 a person, and I'd like to be nowhere near that number, for the evening or the dollars.

What was actually in the dress-up bin

Tuesday after school, before Caleb's practice, I dragged the bin out of the corner of the basement and tipped it on the carpet. Before I touched anything I had each child tell me what they wanted to be, and I wrote it down on the back of an envelope exactly as they said it. Ben said "Biscuit" and pointed up the stairs. Lily said palomino, and corrected me when I wrote horse. Caleb said "I'm not doing a costume" and then, a minute later, "unless it's not a costume costume."

The bin had a felt crown from the Christmas skit, one pair of plastic cowboy boots that fit Lily two summers ago and now fit nobody, a bath towel cape that has been a superhero, a vampire and a wizard in its time, three hats and a stick horse with a yarn mane that has lost one eye. Lily held up the stick horse and said a palomino can't carry a horse. A palomino has to be the horse. She's right. So the bin got me about a third of the way. For Lily, tan sweatpants (three dollars at the DI), the yarn mane off the stick horse sewn to a headband, and a tail pinned to the back. For Ben, a rust-colored fleece pullover for $3.99, two floppy ears cut from felt I already had, and a tail made from the leg of a pair of David's worn-out wool socks. That makes a golden retriever, and a warm one, which matters with Ben outside in the dark.

The rule with a child who is nearly three is that he has to be able to take it off himself. I put the ears on a soft headband because a hood would be a hat he'd rip off, and I'm skipping a mask altogether since he can't see out of one and he'd walk into the neighbor's mailbox. He turns three on October 30, the day before Halloween, so I've been telling him he's almost big. He told me he's already big. I'm still planning around him as if he were smaller than he is, which is about what I said when I wrote about the crib having to go, and apparently I haven't stopped.

The year I went as a bouquet

When I was ten my mother, Diane, ran her wedding-flower business out of the converted shed behind our house, and there was never a shortage of anything green and wired. I told her I wanted to be a flower. She heard "bouquet." She wrapped me in green crepe paper from my neck to my knees, pinned paper roses up one side and stuck a ring of tissue petals around my head on a headband of florist's wire. I couldn't sit, so I knelt backward on the back seat of the car the whole ride to my friend's house with my chin on the headrest, and my father drove very slowly around corners.

I loved it so much that when the rain came halfway through the evening and the crepe ran green down my legs I kept walking.

The year after that I asked for a ghost and got one, a white pillowcase with eyeholes that took my mother about four minutes. I remember being quietly sorry it hadn't cost her more. That isn't fair to her and she'd roll her eyes at me.

What do you do with an eleven-year-old who says he's too old?

I asked what he'd want to be if someone else were responsible for all of it, and he said the guy behind the catcher. The umpire. He plays fall ball and David helps coach, so he's watched an umpire in the same black shirt for six weeks, and the part he likes best is the small brush they use to sweep off home plate.

That's a costume with a joke in it, which is what an eleven-year-old can live with. Black polo he already owns, gray pants (five dollars ninety-nine, the DI again), his baseball cap, and a pastry brush from my drawer on a loop of string at his belt.

He'll be the only umpire on the street with a pastry brush. I told him I would not make anyone take a picture, which seemed to matter more to him than the pants.

He cares about this stuff more than he lets on. This is the boy who wanted to know if he really had to wear a white shirt every week, which I wrote about in that post on the white shirt, and he has never once come out of his room dressed by accident. When I asked about the costume I asked one time. He could have said no, and then he'd have been handed the candy bowl and we'd have called it a year.

What I'm buying and what I'm letting go

The total, if you're counting: $3.99 for Ben's fleece, $3 for Lily's sweatpants and $5.99 for Caleb's pants. That's $12.98, or just under thirteen dollars. The felt, yarn, wool sock, pastry brush and the black polo were already in the house, which is where the real saving was, and you only see it if you check the bin before the store.

Ben won't get a second costume for the ward party, since I've learned he'll wear one and treat the other as a bad idea. Nobody's matching anybody. The umpire gets no face paint since he'd be mortified. I won't be learning to sew a horse head for Lily when a headband with a mane does the job and she designed it herself.

What I'm adding is reflective tape on the cuffs and a flashlight for each of them, because costumes are dark and the street is darker than it looks from the porch. The NRF survey says Spider-Man leads the children's costumes this year, and none of mine is going as him.

"Consumers continue to make Halloween a spending priority, but they are also approaching the season with affordability in mind"

National Retail Federation, Halloween survey release, September 22, 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it too late to plan Halloween costumes in early October?

No. The same survey says about half of shoppers start in September or earlier, so the other half are right where you are. With three weeks and a few days left, look in the closet first.

How do I keep a costume cheap for a toddler who won't keep it on?

Soft, loose and easy to get out of. Skip the mask and use a headband instead of a hood. Put it on him for ten minutes a day this week so it's boring by the time it matters.

What if my eleven-year-old says he's too old?

Don't argue the point. Mine won't be talked out of it by anybody and I'd rather he not be. What worked was a question about what he finds funny, which had nothing to do with Halloween. If yours has nothing, let him hand out candy.

Are there official Church rules about Halloween costumes?

I haven't found a Church-wide one, and nobody has ever handed me one. Our ward has its own party flyer with a few reasonable guidelines, so I read that. Check yours before you buy anything.

Two of mine will look like animals and one like a man from the baseball diamond, with me at the back of the pack holding a flashlight. What did your eleven-year-old settle on when he said he was too old?

with love, Melissa