My eldest daughter has made it her goal for the past three Halloweens to choose costumes that do not exist in any store and, therefore, must be special ordered, well in advance, to ensure delivery before the aforementioned holiday.
First, it was the fairy princess costume which I undertook to make to save money. HA! I could have purchased three or four decent fairy costumes for the cost of that venture, but NO ONE ELSE looked like her on Halloween! Oh, the tulle, the flowers, the ribbons - clouds of PINK! Ballerinas at the Joffrey Ballet would have envied this costume! I think we are still paying off the debts to JoAnn's and Hancock's.
Then, last year - she had to be The Statue of Liberty. Ah, my little historian in the making. I had to oblige so noble a request. I ordered the costume rather than attempting to sew it. The plain olive green robe arrived with a battery-powered little torch and pointy foam headdress (albeit a little crushed and bent). Alas, no tablet! In fear of her disappointment, I wisely reminded her that she only had two hands and could not also hold the tablet. So, for the most part, she was thrilled with her costume and skipped along with her Disney princess trick or treat bag in one hand and that torch in the other. The only problem was that after she announced, "Trick or Treat!" most of the people felt an incredible need to sing "God Bless America" to her. It impeded her speedy progress through the neighborhood to acquire enormous amounts of candy. So much for patriotism. It's all about the candy.
Now this year, she had to be Princess Leia. Of course, we're in Hawaii and we just don't have the luxury of shopping that the Mainland does. You have to take what you get here. Sure, I could have made a white robe and replicated the cool belt. But, hey, I have a toddler and a baby! I would rather spend money and very little effort! So, I searched and searched the web to find a costume that WASN'T the slave girl bikini and DIDN'T cost more to ship here than the costume is worth. Thankfully, I accomplished that. Whew!
Now, my middle daughter has some kind of angel/fairy costume that Dad picked out (because she really doesn't care yet!) but please note that she is holding her toothbrush. This child must brush her teeth 60 times per day. She climbs onto the bathroom sink to suck out all the toothpaste and play with floss. So I figure, the costume has wings...
VOILA! She's the tooth fairy!
Now, the youngest doesn't know anything about all these things yet...so on the saga continues...