Happy Halloween! Normally this isn’t an old-timey day, but there are just too many funny old pictures to not do this when I have the excuse. I did a quick browse of some of dad’s photo boxes at my parents’ house on Friday and pulled some of these shots; the others I had in my own archive. This is by no means a complete history — that would have required a lot more digging. Here we go!
We begin in 1985. That paper plate I’m holding up is in fact a mask (homemade), and we have a famous family video of me with it singing “Who’s behind that false face?” — only it comes out more like falsh fashe. A true classic.
Same year, headed out for treats.
Probably the same year? High school folks, note that Pressly is the building in the background, which means Grandpa is parked somewhere on Love Patio. (Come to think of it, if this is 1985 still, it predates Broyles by a few years.) Everybody, note how ridiculously cute I am.
I think this is 1986. That menacing pumpkin face seems to be an old standby through the years… way to mix things up, dad.
This must be 1987, and I can only assume that this was somebody else’s really intense ballet recital tutu.
Aaand let’s skip right ahead to the mid-’90s! Couldn’t easily find photos of the interim, but I can tell you that it involved many a black cat costume. This is Halloween of 1996 (eighth grade), and I was obviously not prepared for it. In fact, I think all three of us worked out of our closets on this one. I’m a devil, in (borrowed) red sweatpants, a polo and devil horns purchased at the Georgia Renaissance Festival. After we were done going door-to-door that evening, we hopped over to a carnival at Mary Elizabeth’s church; I took off my horns and told people I was dressed as a chili pepper.
Four years later — my senior year of high school — Abby, Tricia and I went for the devil thing again, with a bit of vampire and eurotrash mixed in. Krista was a flamenco dancer. We didn’t so much trick-or-treat as drive around to a friends’ houses and hang out. (During the day at school I dressed as Wayne.)
For Halloween 2003 I was in Germany, where Halloween was juuuust starting to be a thing locals paid attention to. A bunch of kids from my study abroad program went over to this giant international student dorm that had a giant warehouse of a club for its Halloween party. Without my dress-up clothes handy, I fell back on the ol’ construction-paper-and-bobby-pins devil horns. Amanda was a Magic 8-ball, auf Deutsch.
Last but not least, we come to 2004, which was the last time I dressed up for Halloween before this weekend. Maybe I unconsciously took a break because I thought this getup would be hard to top. I’m wearing a totally legit dirndl I bought in a secondhand shop in Freiburg with a funny dirndl shirt purchased in Munich and an apron my mom whipped up and mailed to me. Like any good beer maid, I’ve got pretzels and a Maßkrug at the ready. Also pictured: my roommates Napoleon Dynamite, ’80s Girl, and Jenna Bush. Here’s a bonus pic of me and Tyler, my friend who studied in Freiburg with me and also went the traditional-German-garb route, because we make such a cute pair of Bavarians:
And with that, I’ll wrap up this walk down memory lane. As soon as I have photos from this weekend’s festivities, I’ll post a few and tell you all about it.
