The Family that Dresses up Together, Stays Together: Costume Ideas for 2017!

It’s almost trick or treat time!  I don’t know about you, but we always struggle to find the perfect family costume (we like to dress up together with a common theme).  Every year it obviously falls at the same time, but every year I find myself in stressed out last minute mode figuring out what we’ll be.  I think part of the reason is that I take the day and dressing up VERY seriously – so I put a lot of pressure on myself!  Last year my husband and I went as fisherman, who had just caught a crab named Sebastian (our son) and a mermaid named Ariel (our daughter). Before our son was born we dressed up as farmers and our daughter was our little sheep!  It makes her so happy to see both of her parents in costume, she thinks it’s hilarious.  And our son (now almost 2), will surely get a kick out of it next month.

In my search to find creative family costumes, I found certain sites that are helpful for brainstorming:

• Pinterest – a great place to start a search (for anything really)!   
• Family Costume Ideas The Michael Jackson theme is amazing.  
• DIY Family Costume Ideas Ideas for creative costumes you can make (if you are so inclined and talented)!  These costumes are always the best in my opinion – completely original, and you won’t dump so much money into an outfit you’ll all wear once.  My favorite: The Where’s Waldo family.
• More Family Costume Ideas! The Willy Wonka family is super impressive.
• Sibling Costumes  Coordinated costume ideas for siblings, like Harry Potter and Hedwig!

​I thought it might also be useful to share my thought process as to how I narrow down ideas for our family costume.  If you have a baby, what are your or your partner’s interests?  What do you love?

Are you obsessed with monkeys? How about zoo keepers, monkey parents, or you could be trees (and the monkey is hanging on you)!
Are you an avid basketball fan? Mascot, coaches, cheerleaders and of course the baby star basketball player.
Tennis?  A tennis ball, tennis players (add the curly wig and 70’s headband for added pizazz)
Do you love lobster?  You could be chefs, fisherman, people with lobster bibs and forks/crackers.  Your little nugget is your lobster!
Is Ghostbusters your favorite movie of all time? The ghostbusters, a baby ghost and a Stay-Puft man (they even make a ghostbuster dog costume if you’re getting your dog involved)!
Game of Thrones? Mother of Dragons/Khaleesi and little baby dragons….dad can be Khal Drogo or Jon Snow.
If it’s a toddler or older child, think about what their interests are.
Train: conductor, no crossing sign, different parts of train including middle and caboose.  
Legos: different colored blocks, different lego characters.  
Pizza:  slice of pizza, delivery guy, a pizza box.  
Where the Wild Things Are:  Max and some of the silly monsters.  
Firetrucks:  a little fireman, a fire hydrant, a house on fire (put a big box around your torso and decorate as a building on fire or you can just be flames).  The ideas are endless!
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So what will we be? Well… so far she has expressed interest in being a doctor (I thank Dr. Cao and the awesome staff at SSP for her interest in all things doctors and science)!  She has a scrubs outfit, daddy and mommy could be nurses and her baby bro could be wheeled in the stroller dressed up as the patient.  Or, he will be a “baby doctor”, which she thinks is super funny.   Another family idea we’ve toyed around is Moana, baby brother is Maui, dad and mom are kakamoras (cave-dwelling goblins) OR Tui and Sina, Moana’s mom and dad.   Who knows!  But one thing is for certain, we will look very silly and have a night to always remember.