The Most Epic Halloween Costume

Summer officially ends on September 22, and the chill in the air this morning was a reminder that autumn will arrive soon.

I love fall and everything that comes with it: the trees proudly display their leaves in stunning shades of orange, yellow, red, and brown, the cool (not cold) temperatures that, for some reason, make the air feel cleaner, a hot cup of coffee on a brisk Sunday morning, and most of all, the feelings of nostalgia that every year accompany the arrival of the season. Halloween is another thing I love about fall, and just like Ralphie never forgot his beloved Red Rider, I will never forget the best Halloween costume that ever graced the planet Earth.

To adequately explain how epic this costume was, I must first provide a bit of backstory. From the moment I was old enough to watch television and understand what I was looking at, I was obsessed with I Dream of Jeannie, and when I say “obsessed,” I mean OBSESSED. This next part is a little embarrassing, but hey, I was a kid (my excuse): my sister says she remembers that at any given moment, it wasn’t unlikely to see me performing a cringe-worthy imitation of Jeannie magic, where I’d cross my arms and quickly blink my eyes (she also swears that some of those blinks were attempts at making her disappear). I wanted a Jeannie bottle (not to be confused with a genie lamp) so bad that I could taste it. The one on the show was gorgeous, and even though it didn’t have a TV or refrigerator, I would have been quite happy to live in it. I had a genie bottle toy from Radio Shack that operated on the same premise as the Magic 8 Ball—providing sound and life-changing advice, but unlike the 8 Ball, as the bottle told your fortune, a suspicious, strange-smelling smoke wafted from the mouth. But, alas, even with the smoke effect, the Radio Shack version did not measure up to the real thing. I also wanted a costume exactly like the one on the television show, but I knew the odds of getting that were about as likely as the odds of getting the bottle.

Most Gen X-ers and older folks will remember the Halloween costume choices from the seventies. Still, for the younger generations, I’ll explain: if you wanted to be a particular character from a television show, a superhero, or any fictional character in general, you might find what you were looking for, but what you’d end up with in a store-bought costume left much to be desired. If you look up “cheap” in the dictionary, a 1970s Halloween costume will probably be the thumbnail photo alongside the written definition. The masks were disturbing to look at, to say the least, and were itchy, stuffy, and highly uncomfortable to wear. The clothing part of the costume really couldn’t even be considered “clothing” because it was made from some sketchy type of plastic that felt similar to the material used for garbage bags. There were no party stores or Internet for online shopping, so if you wanted a pre-made costume, your choices were limited to whatever was available at your local department or drug store.

I must have been about eight or nine that year. My mom said she would make me an I Dream of Jeannie costume for Halloween. I’d never seen her make any type of clothing, and I must admit, I had my doubts, but I guess I had at least enough faith in her abilities to be excited, and so I was. She started months ahead, and when you’re a child who is excited about something, it seems like Father Time slows down to torture you. I remember her sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by pieces of cloth, some with pattern parts pinned on. It all looked so confusing and chaotic, and I couldn’t imagine that the mess all over the floor would ever end up being something a person could wear, but eventually, it did. After months of work, she had finished the costume. I don’t think there has ever been—or ever will be—a kid more in love with and proud of their Halloween attire.

I’m old now and look back through a much different lens than when I was eight. Now, I can see every bit of love that went into that costume, and I wish I could go back in time and tell her that it means even more to me now—more than 40 years later—than it did when I donned it that All Hallows’ Eve so many years ago.

You see, now, when I look back, I understand just how much work my mom put into turning a wish into a reality. She went to the store to buy the pattern and materials. She didn’t have a sewing machine, so she hand-sewed every stitch in that thing. Every. Single. Stitch. I remember her searching high and low, going to one store after another looking for a “donut” for my hair. And although I don’t remember doing it, I’m willing to bet that I relentlessly pestered her with my version of the old “Are we there yet?” turning it into, “Is it done yet?”  And I almost left out the most important part: she had cancer—all this she did while sick with cancer so that I could be Jeannie as I went house-to-house getting my plastic pumpkin filled.

Stepping outside this morning led my thoughts to autumn, which led to thinking about the long-ago Halloween that went down in my history book as the one where I had the best costume of any kid in the world.

And now I’m here, writing about it. Writing often brings about realizations for me, and as I was writing this, I realized exactly why that costume still means so much to me and why my memories around it are so vivid. As a kid, when I looked at that pink, white, and red harem costume, I saw an outfit resembling the one Barbara Eden wore on the show.

But now, I look at it differently. In my mind’s eye, I can see my mom on the floor, in the middle of a mess of cloth and pattern pieces, and when I envision the finished product, I see it differently than I did before. I see more than just a pink, white, and red harem costume…

I see what love looks like.

And I like autumn even more than I did yesterday.