This year on All Hallows Eve, we attended a parish costume party, complete with games and prizes. Since my kids are older, they kicked up the costume fun a notch. Of course I prodded my kids about costumes for over a month beforehand. No one was particularly interested. None of them wanted to settle on their saint or work on their costumes. Then, the day before the party, they kicked into high gear.
I had been trying to interest my oldest and was making jokes about how he should attend as a martyr, especially one that was unique like St. Lawrence, Pope St. Clement I, etc. His imagination and sense of humor was finally stirred by my suggestion to be St. John the Baptist after he was beheaded. This is what we came up with.
For the table, he took a box, fixed wooden fence stakes to it for legs, and a thin piece of plywood to the top so that a tablecloth would hang in a convincing way. We duct taped some spare fabric around the plywood edge so that the cloth went to the floor, and used an old decorative table cloth layered over that. He cut a hole big enough for his head to fit through the box and wood. We cut Xs in the cloth so that his head could fit through those. Then we cut an aluminum serving tray in two, duct taped the edges to protect him from cuts. This was to be fitted on either side of his neck in order to make it appear that his head was on a platter.
He really didn't need a wig, but thought an old ratty one we had was extra humorous. So he used red lipstick for blood on his neck, eye liner for a scruffy beard, crouched in the box, donned the wig, and tried to look dead. Unfortunately, this first dry run was the only picture I captured, but you get the idea.
My oldest daughter liked the martyr idea after that too. She decided on St. Joan of Arc due to her hair cut. I fashioned cardboard flames for her that caused an emotional and nerve wracking kick off to the party. (We ran out of time when working on the flames, and had to settle for plain yellow paint which wouldn't dry. That meant that we had to go in two separate vehicles and that she was late for the line-up. We didn't even get time to make her look like she was tied to the stake! Oh, well.) The flames were zip tied to a PVC pipe that I spray painted to look like hammered metal. She wore her dad's white shirt, an old skirt of mine, and some awesome shoes that she constructed. She had old, orange, Croc-style rubber shoes. To these she tied some split wood by lacing twice around the wood and through the holes in the shoes. To the shoes she hot glued sticks and leaves. They were cumbersome to walk in, but really "made" her costume. Here's how it turned out.
My youngest daughter was St. Kateri Tekakwitha because she wanted to put her long hair to good use. :)
My middle boy was St. Joseph.
My husband went as St. Maximilian Kolbe in his prison uniform.
I transformed a striped pair of pajamas for the occasion.
And I went as St. Christopher holding the Christ Child (my youngest, curly-headed son.) I wore a button-down shirt of my husband's, some rolled up work pants, my rope sandals, carried a staff, and lugged my son around. He was dressed in a white onesie under a white slip, with white leather slippers. He was absolutely adorable.
My oldest two were the only saints depicted during or after martyrdom. I guess that's a bit gruesome, but we tried not to be too gory, and it certainly resonated with my 'tween and teen. They would have been begrudging participants otherwise.
