Fear the Bunny, A Cautionary Halloween Tale

Every year my kids choose Halloween costumes. And every year since they were about four they have insisted that those costumes be different than the ones they wore the year before. As if anyone remembers. But okay. Off we go to Wal-Mart to find something good. Wait a minute – we don’t do that at all. Turns out I’m WAY too cheap to shell out $20 each and every year for some half-sewn wad of polyester. No, it’s a rare day that we buy off-the-shelf goblin attire. Usually I send my children into the closet with a pair of blunt scissors and a Sharpie.

“Be creative,” I say. And they are. One year my son made a convincing Luke Skywalker from nothing but a scrap of burlap and the core from an old roll of wrapping paper. My daughter looked just like Laura Ingalls Wilder in a dress made from pillow cases and some strategically placed pot-holders. They have paraded the neighborhood as fairies, witches, ghosts, and pirates.

But last year my girl settled on her dream costume long before we ventured into the closet.

“I want to be a bunny rabbit,” she told me. Great, I thought. I started mentally planning: white t-shirt, blush pink nose, floppy rag ears, done. I was all for it until she added, “We can use ketchup for the blood!”

I hadn’t factored in the blood. But it soon became clear that she didn’t want to be an ordinary bunny, but an evil bunny rabbit – the one from Monty Python. She wanted to be the bunny with the vicious teeth. If you haven’t seen the Holy Grail, there’s a bunny, lots of blood, and an injured knight of the round table. (All very family friendly I assure you.)

Although I’d rather she dress up as something a little less menacing, my daughter was intent on being evil. Who knew my cute second grader was a Halloween purist? I can’t blame her. Halloween is supposed to be scary. It’s fun to play evil. Who would you rather pretend to be – Cruella DeVille or the lame-o chick trying to save the puppies? Playing evil is fun because it’s make believe. And we all know that real evil doesn’t wear vampire teeth.

In the end, I was able to talk my angel of a girl into being a green-faced witch. She got to be scary, but traditional too and in my opinion, sweet and nostalgic. This year she told me she wants to be a hot dog. So apparently she’s simply intent on splashing herself with ketchup. And she knows how to work the system.