So you want to buy a Halloween costume

Disclosure: Affiliate links within this post.

Let’s start this off by stating something most of you all know about me: Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I don’t “hate” it, because hate is a strong word. I strongly dislike it with every ounce of my being. When it comes to shopping for costumes, the last thing I want to do is buy a Halloween costume for ANYONE in this family. However, the kids love the trick-or-treating, and going to Halloween parties. It’s a part of being a parent: suck it up, put on a happy face, and get the kids hooked up with killer costumes!

The last couple of years, the kids have kind of saved me a lot of money by using hand-me-down costumes, or ones that were from their playtime stashes! I haven’t had to purchase a Halloween costume since my daughter was a baby. It was a bumble bee her first time around, and The Boy used it two years later. The next year she was a lion, and two years later, The Boy used that one, too. Little Miss has been an orange butterfly, Tinker Bell, a witch, a cat, and last year she was Theodora from Oz. Yup, that’s right, she was a witch twice. Ironic, since she’s the sweetest little thing on the planet.

The Boy? He’s always had hand-me-downs until last year when he wanted to be Batman. Previously he was the bumble bee, the lion, a Captain Hook, Jake from Neverland Pirates, and last year it was Batman.

It was our first official year buying costumes for BOTH kids. Real, honest-to-goodness costumes from Halloween stores. I wish I had been able to buy them online, so I could get 10% off kids costumes. I don’t have such luck. With two kids that don’t fit into normal sizes, it’s always a MUST to have them try the costumes on before purchasing them. TORTURE. First, shopping in stores is not my favorite thing, as I love my online shopping! Second, it’s HALLOWEEN COSTUME SHOPPING. Again, not fun for me.

Buy a Halloween costume that’s hot for 2014

My secret to shopping for Halloween costumes this year? Head over to HalloweenCostumes.com to shop 2014 costumes! Well, more like hunt through the hottest costumes for 2014 and figure out what would work for the kids. Honestly, it was no surprise what was going to rule the costumes this year for kids:

Shhhh. I was hoping the kids would do something easy, and simple: Elsa and Olaf from Frozen. It didn’t go that way for our magical Halloween shopping trip of DOOM. Little Miss didn’t want to be what “everyone else is going to be, Mah-um.” Figures, my daughter was the only one on the planet who did NOT want to be a Frozen character. Of course, The Boy, who LOVES the movie and adores Olaf, wasn’t going to go for the Olaf costume if his sister wasn’t going to be Elsa, or even Anna. He announced he wanted to be “Michelangelo.” I asked “You hate wearing masks, how are you going to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle without wearing a mask?”

I will gladly wear the mask if I can be Mikey the turtle, and have nunchucks.

Shoot.Me.Now.

If you’re keeping score, my daughter has no idea what she wants to dress up as, and The Boy wants to be a turtle. Can you conjure up an image of how this went for our family? Oh, not just me and the kids, but we brought my mother along for the hunt. We went to every store we could imagine to find these kids costumes. All of the sizes were way too large for The Boy, and we were going to have to go to a specialty Halloween store that pops up in the neighborhood. Little Miss couldn’t decide who she wanted to be, until we hit the second-to-last store.

I was pushing around the Frozen costumes, and I found this beautiful costume. It was light blue, and had gold threading designing the edges…. it looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Little Miss saw me hold it up, and she said “Yes, Mom. I want that one. It’s Aurora.” Yes, my daughter loved the movie Maleficent, so of course she’d want to be Aurora. She doesn’t want to be the amazing dark haired Maleficent. No, of course not. She wants to be another blond character, Aurora. Her favorite thing in the world is Tinker Bell, a blond. I had to buy a wig for her the year she was Tinker Bell. Now? She chooses Aurora, another blond.

What the hell? I couldn’t say no. She fell in love with the costume, it looked awesome with her blue eyes. I told her no blond wig, but we can spray her hair with sparkly glitter spray, and do her hair just like the character had it in the movie. She was fine with both ideas.

It’ll be me, Aurora and Mikey walking house to house this Halloween. I think these two will be sharing more than half their candy this year, after the torture of shopping, and buying these costumes this year. I so wish I could just order costumes online like so many of you out there can do. I could have saved money, and saved myself the hassle of hunting racks and racks of costumes!

Group themed costume shopping

Are you a family that does the whole “theme” to dress up around? Get the entire family involved? I highly recommend shopping online for your entire family! Trust me, families that love to dress up with a really cute theme, you’re going to love what HalloweenCostumes.com has to offer! It’s a group costume selector. I kid you not. You pick a theme you want, such as super heroes (think The Incredibles from Disney,) or Disney Princesses, or The Jetsons, or even something as simple as a food group! After you pick a theme, you then customize the costumes you want to purchase for each family member. If you want Daddy to be Woody from Toy Story, hook him up with his costume. The kids? Buzz and Jesse would work. Mommy, go ahead and choose Bo Peep (she was the one Woody “liked.”) Once you know who will be which character, pick sizes and order it up!!!