Our Little Coven

R comes from a family filled with superheroes and supervillians, as you can see from this recent family photograph:


That is the extended family. Our own little coven comes from two literary vampire hotspots: Transylvania (as expected), and Forks, Washington.

Ever since Scotty's sharp widow's peak hairline grew in, I have thought he was perfectly suited to be Count Dracula for Halloween. All he needed was a cape and some pale makeup to complete the ensemble.

Our sister-in-law N had a fantastic red collar to start us off, and R just had to sew on an altered black skirt from the second-hand store. Then we added a medallion from the craft store hanging on some Christmas ribbon and the Count was ready to stalk candy amongst the living.


He didn't much enjoy sitting in the stylist's chair for hair and makeup, but he loved the way that his cape flapped in the wind when he would run across the lawn or go for a swing.

When asked about his costume, he knew the he was "a vampire", but he really had no idea what that was. It was probably even more confusing for him that we also said we were dressed as vampires, since we weren't dressed anything like him.


I was Edward Cullen, everyone's favourite fictional resident of Forks, Washington. My makeup was a mixture of "porcelain" foundation and body glitter. You see, in some stories, vampires sparkle in the sun. Unfortunately, a camera flash doesn't do the sparking justice.


You will notice that I've made my own baseball jersey -- for those occasional thunderstorms.


R was dressed up as Bella Swan -- Edward's true love. If you are familiar with the Twilight literary series, you will understand where in the chronology R's costume fits. Notice the "little nudger" she has there in her tummy.

We thought it might be a fun touch for her to be carrying a cup full of red fruit punch with a straw, but we never followed through on that one.


Although vampires are believed to be nocturnal hunters, our little Count Dracula had great success during a mid-afternoon hunt for candy at Northland Mall with his cousins Spider, the Green Goblin and Venom.


He quite enjoyed watching the loot drop into his little bag. However, once he had a few items in his bag, he wasn't satisfied collecting any more until he could get at least a bit of it into his mouth. He called a timeout until he could get a good sugar fix and then he continued his stalking.


The evening trick-or-treat session was much the same. He was happy running from door to door for a while, but eventually he hit a wall when the bag got heavy, the sun grew dim and he thirsted for something sweet to suck on -- something like a lemon-flavoured lollipop.