my very own personal me: In Motha Russia, Halloween costumes wear you! (Or not even a little bit at all ever.)

To be reallyreally honest, I've never been a huge fan of Halloween. It's not a holiday we had in Russia, and it was not a holiday that broke the immigration barrier when my mom and I moved to the U.S. I remember dressing up just twice in all my childhood. The first time I was Lisa Simpson. I had a plastic Lisaface mask to cover my face and Lisa's orange tube dress to wear. In retrospect, it was the perfect costume. I identified with Lisa Simpson even at the tender age of 6.

But you can't do anything like an American kid when you're not an American kid. Russian parents are all too familiar with the cruel bite of cold and they protect their children from it like the fiercest of mama and papa bears. Every American I know is always like whyyoualwayscoldyouarefrommotharussia!!

I mean, I get it. I do. I should be used to the cold. It snows heavily in Russia. People wear furs and ushankas.

But I don't like the cold. In fact, I hate the cold and like to cover up in it - a proclivity I'm sure I developed during my childhood when my mom insisted on smothering me in coats and multiple layers when the thermometer read anywhere below 78 degrees. That's why on my first Halloween in the U.S. (Southern California if you want to be semi specific-er) I was forced to wear beneath my perfect Lisa Simpson costume a wool black onesie that my mom had procured for me over the summer at some obscure garage sale. Also we were pretty poor and I think I had only one pair of shoes at the time and they were sneakers. Summary: black wool onesie, scuffed white unisex velcro 90s sneakers, orange tube dress, yellow Lisa mask. I was a disaster and I knew it. I spent the entire night making wistful eyes at all the normally costumed kids without black onesies miring their get-up. The following year we recycled the onesie into a cat costume.

As for my fully Americanized adult life, I can say I've dressed up for Halloween just twice, both times as Alice in Wonderland. The Renaissance Fair doesn't count.

This year though!

This year.....

This year won't be any different. J is out of town tomorrow evening and my highest hopes for the night are that nobody comes to my door because a) I did not buy any candy (I mean, we're on the third floor people. What parent is going to drag herself and her child up this high anyway?), and b) the dogs will bark up a storm and scare pretty much everyone away anyway.

However, I'm not totally eschewing Halloween this year. Somehow I talked my coworkers into celebrating the day by bringing in coffee and fruit. I'll be contributing baked pumpkin spice donut holes.