How do you do Halloween?

If I were an excellent blogger I would have already done a photoshoot of a coordinated family costume, all made by hand of course, with thrifted items and things from my closet. I would never have gone to the Halloween store and purchased costumes from a bag or shake-and-go wig! What kind of person would I be??

I should have a display area in my home where I have stylishly placed hand painted pumpkins, Halloween related artwork and a bowl of caramels made from scratch. I should have shared hot cider recipes and pumpkin-flavored-everything recipes! What would you think of me if I told you I haven't touched a can of pumpkin puree or even considered roasting a pumpkin this year?

What I AM doing to get in the spirit is listening to a nice gothic themed playlist (lots of The Cure) and watching Halloween movies (including American Horror Story!! This season is pretty good so far, am I right?)

Last weekend we dove an hour to the closest town with a costume store and picked up some stuff. My dream Halloween costume for the family was to be characters from Labyrinth. I would be Sarah, Ellie would be Toby and Joe wanted to be Ludo (there is an awesome DIY Ludo costume on Insructables here... I just don't have the time to make it!) 

Instead of Labyrinth costumes we are going to be separate characters. I'm going as Elvira and Ellie will be my black cat. Joe is going as Buckethead, the guitarist. I would have put a lot more effort into costumes if I knew we would have a party to go to or an event to be at. The problem with moving around so much is that you never have friends who throw parties! We will be going to a skate competition and maybe a haunted ship in the town over from us. 

Halloween is one of those holidays I LOVE, but it can get so expensive and become so time consuming to do it right. Then sometimes you spend all that time on a costume and you have nowhere to go in it! I've never been a hostess type, but I would love to one day throw a Halloween party.