** UPDATED ENTRY W/ A HEADLESS COSTUME PHOTO! IT'S A PIC OF A PIC, SO NOT GREAT QUALITY**

Yes, it's only October but that means the holidays are here. Part of the whole commercialization thing, in my book, is the fact that all holidays now begin at least 2 months early. Drives me batty.

At any rate, all the holiday hubbub has gotten me thinking about things that are frugally festive, and I decided I wanted a category just for this topic. Frugally festive can be any event, not just Christmas et al. It's about getting the juices flowing and thinking 'outside the box'. Or, in my case 'outside the wallet'.

So, here are my ways of being Frugally Festive for Halloween

1. Costume: get an old prom/wedding dress from the thrift store or yardsale of your choice. Many options here: princess, fairy godmother, bridesmaid, Bride of Frankenstein, dead whatever.

2. Costume: My all-time favorite and one I wear year after year since I can't top it. Guaranteed to make drunk people scream! Get a trench coat from the thrift store or yardsale of your choice. On either the right or left side remove the lining from the pocket, and carefully rip the seams on both the top and bottom of the slit for the pocket. Stuff some gloves with whatever you have on hand and pin them inside the arms of the coat. Stuff the arms and torso of the coat, leaving room near the pocket you have altered. Make yourself up to look all dead from the neck up, slip into the bottom of the trenchcoat and poke your head out through the pocket. Wrap one of the stuffed arms around your head and stick the hand in the pocket. TADA: you are now a 7ft tall headless guy!!! Tip: the top half of a Swiffer handle works well to hold up the torso, so you don't have to.


3. Entertaining: I don't do candy (I mean, I eat it, but I won't buy it for a party, too pricey). I make peanut butter eyeballs, witch finger cookies, breadsticks shaped like bones with 'blood' (marinara) dipping sauce, and *chuckle* kitty litter cake. EEEWWW!

4. Drinking (hey, I'm young!): I make jello shots with pineapple off-brand gelatin and set them up in little Dixie plastic bathroom cups. They look like urine samples. Again: EEEWWW!

5. Decorating: If I'm having a party, I'll do up the bathroom (it's cheap!). Buy a clear plastic shower curtain ($1), 2 white handtowels ($1 each), and a small bottle of red acrylic paint ($2). I also add a strobe light since I already have one. Take shower curtain & towels outside, lay them on the ground, and splatter with the red paint. Hang up shower curtain and toss handtowels around. Since I have the strobe light I also rig up man out of stuffed clothes, hang him from the shower head, and put the stobe in the shower pointed at him. Even more effective is to disable the rest of the lights in the bathroom! All of this decor at $5 is reusable year after year...

And that is my Frugally Festive Halloween!