Oh When The Saints....

Okay. I will admit it. I hate this time of year. I really do. I hate Halloween.

Now before you think it's because I have some holy and spiritual reason, well, let me set you straight. I hate it because I lack crafting, sewing, and basic artistic skills. Yet once a year, on a shoe string budget I am expected to get a boatload of kids ready to be dressed as a particular saint!

I am down to five this year. Tomorrow I will be driving Blessed Mother Teresa, St. Nicholas, St. George, the Blessed Mother and St. Teresa of Avila to school. At ten this evening, my dear hubby, (who is very, very artistic, crafty and can make a sari out of an old bed sheet, blue masking tape and a safety pin), finished the last of it. And we barely fought this year.

I don't have any idea what the man has to complain about. I do all the planning, mostly in my head as I am driving and children are yelling things to me like,"Mom, I want to be St. Lucy, can you get me some fake eyeballs?" or "Mom, I want to be St. Joseph, do you know where that stuffed donkey is that I got when I was three and haven't seen since last Christmas?" This they start yelling from the back of the van to me, at the end of August.

By mid October they have changed their minds at least three times, multiply that by 5 and you have one insane mother by the time October 22 rolls around. Then the real fun begins. I start and finish at the dollar store. Then I hit up Walmart and some random fabric store. By the time I get to Target, I am wondering if it would be worth the 15.99 to buy the robo cop costume so I can use the helmet for St. George, (if my husband covers the weird insignia with a red cross). What aisle are the markers and poster board?

After dinner I set up all the costumes with the poster board, yarn, twine, string, markers, pins, needles, tape, glue sticks, and a staple gun in case he needs to staple something to a child's head.

I move on to laundry or whatever I have to do so that the hubby can do what he is good at. And that is to complain to the children that mom has disappeared, and "does she expect me to do all this by myself?"

What?! Are you kidding me? I have seen the inside of more stores today than Paris Hilton. I have sorted and sifted and held up fabric, picturing a little Therese, or Faustina. I have agonized over the price of rope vs twine. Come on bud. All you gotta do is take what I brought to you and MAKE IT HAPPEN!

After much coaxing and smoothing of ruffled feathers, I get the man to make a shield, and a mitre. Listen, my husband is now an expert at making poster board mitres. I mean it. He fixed the dollar store helmet and armor putting red crosses in the appropriate places. And he made an old thin, white blanket, look like it could clothe one of Blessed Mother Teresa's gals. I am eternally grateful to this man I married.

He once again, in the eleventh hour, made it happen.

And oh, yeah, I owe him big time!