
*by peasap
Although Halloween has become more popular in Europe, for me it remains a very North American rite. This has been only my second Halloween season on the new continent, but I feel like I am ready to write a practical guide to Halloween, covering some essential knowledge for the newcomer.
Let’s start with the most important thing about Halloween: the costume. Now, responsible grad students might ask: “Do I really need to spent time thinking about a suitable costume and dress up?” And my answer is: Yes! Just switch off your brains and follow the mainstream! Also, it is a great opportunity to take the role of one of your childhood heroes or anyone else you would like to imitate for one evening.
The first thing I have discovered about Halloween is that costumes do not necessarily have to be scary. In fact probably about 80% of costumes don’t have anything to do with scary creatures of the zombie type popularly associated with Halloween. I’ve also learned that creativity rules on Halloween. Don’t just go into a store and buy the next-best-costume. Instead, make up something halfway new and possibly build your own costume. Apart from the fact that it is usually cheaper to make a costume instead of buying one, it’s just more fun and you can use your presumably immense creativity on something other than research!
In case you decide to make you own costume, here are what I consider to be the important guidelines, based on experiences with my own costumes in the past.
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