The Vintage Series: Big Bird

I think I might have been about four and a half, or maybe five and a half, and here I am trick or treating at Grandma Jan and Papa’s house. This was one of my very favorite Halloween costumes! My mom made the Big Bird costume. She is an amazing costume maker, and whatever idea we came up with, she usually found a way to make it happen. I was obsessed with Sesame Street, and I loved Big Bird (although for most of my life my favorite Sesame Street muppet has been Oscar the Grouch . . . he was my second favorite at the time).

This costume was warm and lovely, and it fit right over my winter gear for trick or treating. The mask did tend to slip a lot, and I would often stumble and fall off people’s porches. There was always a grown up handy to lift me right out of the bushes each time. We went trick or treating around town with the Flanders kids. It was terribly exciting.

I love how Grandma Jan has a wary, suspicious look in this photograph, and I love how Papa is wearing what he literally wore almost every day: a denim shirt, and I’m sure it was paired with denim pants. He’s sitting in his recliner chair, which was always in the exact same spot all the time. I don’t remember furniture ever moving at my grandparents’ house. It was a place of predictability.