What Was Your Best Halloween Costume?

Everyone who has ever suited up on October 31st has a favorite Halloween costume, or at least one that makes for a good story. Wondering what the big kids at Education.com wore on Halloweens past? Here’s a look at the staff’s best Halloween costumes from their childhoods.

Power RangerIn third grade, I was a Power Ranger. My mom was one of, like, 1% of moms at my school who knew how to sew, and she usually made my costumes. She found a pattern for the Power Rangers suit at the fabric store and made it for me … out of felt. I don’t begrudge her being sensible by buying cheap fabric, but man … felt does not breathe. At all. And this was a full, head-to-ankle suit. I wore that thing all day. I also brought a toy dagger with me and it got taken away at after-school care because it too closely resembled a real weapon. –Jody

Rubik’s CubeThe Rubik’s Cube came out when I was in elementary school. I must have been about 9 years old. It became my obsession and I decided it would be my Halloween costume. My mother and I found a cardboard box. We cut a hole in it for my head and cut colored construction paper into perfect squares and pasted them on the box. The paper was pasted on randomly to resemble a Rubik’s Cube in the process of being solved. I was proud of our creation and walked to school with my head high, full of confidence. That pride quickly dissipated when I got to school and realized another kid had the same idea, but his Rubik’s Cube was store-bought. Suddenly, my beautiful creation became a messy collection of muted colored squares slapped onto a floppy brown box. His Cube was vibrant, colorful and it may have even worked. –Todd

The Hunchback of Notre DameSee the dark form with the faux-dirty face and black skull cap, smack dab between the teal fairy and the poodle skirt? That’s me playing the Hunchback of Notre Dame in third grade. I guess none of my girlfriends knew that Halloween costumes are supposed to be SCARY! –Johanna

Robot
My best Halloween costume as a kid was a robot costume my dad made me out of tin foil-covered cardboard boxes, some kind of collapsible tubing (for the arms and legs) and leftover electronics parts for facial features and buttons and knobs. It looked so cool! –Kat

Minnie Mouse
A lot of my Halloween costumes when I was a kid were princess outfits. This was before Disney started telling stories about Pocahontas, Mulan and girls of the Scottish Highlands, so they were pretty typical frilly, sparkly princess dresses. But my fave costume was probably Minnie Mouse. I went through a phase as a kid where I was all about her. She wore polka dots, she liked the color red, she laughed a lot — we had a lot in common. It was a store-bought costume with mouse ears and hair bow. Quintessentially cute and perfectly Minnie. –Candice

CinderellaMy sister and I were Cinderellas for Halloween, and our triplet siblings were pumpkins. My dad pushed the two Cinderellas in a buggy that served as our carriage. I loved being pushed in the carriage even though I was well beyond the age of needing a stroller. –Ashley

SkunkAs soon as autumn descended, and when she wasn’t otherwise occupied, you’d find my mom hunched over her sewing machine, carefully constructing elaborate costumes for me and my sisters. In third grade I decided to be a skunk. The finished product, thanks to Mom’s mad skills, was a masterpiece. And the best part, by far, was the ridiculously poofy tail. My friends were dumbfounded and I was laughed at all day long. As they haughtily paraded around in fairy wings and South Park masks, I was mentally spraying all over their unwarranted contempt. –Katherine

BelleWhen I was in first grade, Disney’s most fantastic movie ever, Beauty and the Beast, had been out for almost a year by the time Halloween rolled around. So I, like every other elementary-age girl at the time, was Belle for Halloween. But my Belle was by far the best Belle of all Halloween Belles because my awesome grandma, who could sew a perfectly tailored grown man’s three-piece suit out of three tufts of sheep shavings because she was of a generation where that was part of every grandma’s Rolodex of skills, made my Belle costume. My grandma sewed the bejeezus out of that dress. It fit me to a T, moved like the water, draped and gathered intricately and in all the right places, and sparkled and glowed a gilded yellow that seemed to radiate even when I was completely still. I was on Cloud 9 when I was wearing that dress (and believe me, I did not just wear it for Halloween), and at school, I put all those other dress-in-a-bag imposter Belles to SHAME. And they knew it, too. To top it off, I had a pair of matching gloves, my mom did my hair just like Belle’s (I had the curls already down pat), and the best part was that my Gram let me wear one of her prized pieces of costume jewelry from her younger days — a crystal-encrusted necklace that made me feel like a real princess. –Carlee

PumpkinIn first grade I was a pumpkin. It was impossible to use the restroom. –Andrea

FiremanI didn’t care much about Halloween as a kid. So, naturally, my best costume was one I had no hand in choosing. In kindergarten, my mom had me wear a simple fireman’s outfit with shiny rain boots and a gigantic red plastic hat. People went crazy for it while I acted like it was just any other day. –David