Summer is nearly year-round in southeast Texas so it should be no surprise that the free stuff to see and do in the sprawling metropolitan area of the nation’s fourth-biggest city focuses on the outdoors.Listen, kid, I’m not spending $20 on a Halloween costume this year, so don’t even ask.
In my day, we made our costumes. Our mothers handed us a brick and a cigarette and we left the house dressed as chimneys and we were perfectly happy.
If we wanted to look like a hobo or a clown, we raided our father’s closets. If we wanted to dress as a pregnant woman or a nun, we raided our mother’s.
So, just look around your bedroom. There are plenty of costume ideas in there – cardboard boxes, a Superman T-shirt, sunglasses. Take your pick! Just use a little creativity and keep your hands out of my wallet.
Spa treatment
Start with: Bathrobe
Add: A mud mask, slippers, a towel to wrap around your hair, sunglasses and fancy manicure.
These items are the building blocks for a day at the spa. Put them together and you’ve morphed from a 12-year-old into a movie star spending a well-deserved day of pampering away from Brad and the kids.
Tourist attraction
Start with: Sunglasses
Add: Foldable maps, cameras, fanny packs, Hawaiian shirt, sun hat
If you’ve taken many vacations with your parents, this should be an easy costume to master. Just picture what your dad would wear if he were walking around the Great Pyramid of Cholula. Khaki shorts? Big white tennis shoes? Loud shirt? Yes, that is a tourist – one of the easiest, most identifiable Halloween costumes for tweens with dorky dads.
Man of Steel
Start with: Superman T-shirt
Add: Glasses, necktie, white button-down shirt
You’ve got the Superman T-shirt, it’s the cape and tights you’re not so sure about. Instead of snagging your sister’s red tights and underpants, take a step back and dress as Clark Kent becoming Superman – running toward the telephone booth, necktie loose, shirt unbuttoned to show the beginnings of the iconic costume. No tights necessary.
Sweet idea
Start with: Bag of balloons
Add: Clear garbage bag, ribbon
This one is ridiculous, but it’s also really easy. Cut holes into a clear garbage bag for your legs and arms and slip it on. Grab a bag of balloons left over from your little sister’s birthday party, blow them up and shove them into the bag. Tie the top at your neck with ribbon and you’ll look like a delicious bag of jellybeans. (Just don’t sit down.) And if you’re old enough to do all of this, then you’re old enough to know not to put the bag over your head, right? Right.
A real steal
Start with: A long black sock (preferably a clean one)
Add: Black clothes, black gloves, black hat, pillow case
We’re not sure if real burglars dress in black and carry pillowcases filled with candlesticks and other stolen swag, but fake burglars do – in every corny old movie and television show. The most important accessory for a fake burglar is the mask. It should be black, with holes cut out for the eyes and tied around the back of the head. Your dad probably owns plenty of long black socks. Swipe one. It’ll be good practice.
