Back to the costume shop....

My husband and I drove to "The Fun Shop" this afternoon to see if they had discounted their more expensive Halloween costumes. Not a chance. The shop is open all year round, and they sell costumes and accessories for every holiday you can think of, from Halloween to Christmas, from Mardi Gras to July 4th, and everything inbetween. They did have more of those fancy ribbons for Best Costume, Most Original Costume, etc., so I got some of those. I wanted to be sure and have them for our next Halloween party, and this will give me plenty of time to come up with gifts for each of the categories.

We also drove to the Wal-Mart out there, since we were so close to it. They only had costumes for little kids there, but they had plenty of Halloween accessories left over, all at half-price, so I bought all kinds of good stuff. Little trinkets and toys for the kids who come by trick-or-treating, plus stickers for the party invitations that I mail out to our friends. They also had some very fancy witch's hats there.... all black velvet, with either purple or orange feathers all around the brim. Very elegant for a witch, and very pretty. I bought two of the orange-feathered ones, to give out as party gifts to the ladies who win the costume ribbons.

And the purple-feathered one will be for me, because it gave me such a great idea for next year's costume. I have a black and purple dress that I wore to a wedding years ago.... the dress has a sheer plum-purple fabric over black silk, and the bodice of the dress has tiny beaded flowers all over it. Very pretty dress, but I haven't worn it since that wedding. It's too fancy for a Texas wedding (I had bought it for a Connecticut wedding) so unless I wear it as a Victorian costume to "Dickens on The Strand" in Galveston, that dress is going to just keep sitting in my closet.

However, that dress and that purple-feathered witch hat will be perfect for next Halloween. The theme of my costume: When I Am an Old Witch, I Shall Wear Purple. Perfectly purple-y perfect. Let's see..... how many more days till our next Halloween party......

We're still discussing the Christmas party..... we're not exactly in the mood for another huge Open House party. What with the musicians that we hire, the waitress that we get to help me serve, plus the food we have catered in.... a lot of money, a lot of work, and a lot of pressure. We do enjoy the party, but then after it's over, we wonder why we did it up so big. We're thinking of having just a small dinner party for close friends, something like we did last New Year's Eve when we hosted a "gourmet pot-luck sit-down dinner." Each couple brought something truly special and fancy and delicious and we all had a great night. So we may just do that for Christmas this year.... and then have our usual nice dinner on Christmas Day.

One of our neighbors is having a Christmas party in early December.... our around-the-corner neighbor V who comes to our Charades parties. We've already "saved the date" for her on that. Then we're taking young C and her friend L downtown to see the Rockettes and the NYC Christmas show, first time here from Radio City Music Hall. There's also "Dickens on The Strand" in Galveston, and we'll take the two girls to that as well.... we all enjoyed that a lot last year. Then there's the Boat Parade on the waterfront in Kemah... that would be fun to do also, and we've missed that for a bunch of years because our own Christmas party was always on that same weekend.

Lots to do in December.... lots to think about, so we'll see..... But right now, I'm getting the dining room ready for Thanksgiving.... lots of orange and gold candles, silk leaves sprinkled with glitter.... and I found beautiful "Autumn" books by Susan Branch to give as favors for each couple/family that comes for dinner. So far, though, we've just invited C and her parents. We're still thinking about who else to invite. Seems like we're doing a lot of thinking this month.