Christina Ricci's Halloween rule: pick the costume now

It is 5:40 on Halloween night and the dinosaur tail will not stay on. The mask fogs up, the wings hit the door frame, and the person inside the costume has decided, with total conviction, that they are not a dinosaur anymore. Christina Ricci has been there once, and she has a rule that means she never will be again.

The rule: decide early, buy early, rehearse

Ricci, who played Wednesday Addams at eleven and now has two kids of her own, talked Halloween with Scary Mommy this week as part of the Reese’s Halloween Council. Her tradition that has nothing to do with candy is a schedule. “I always make my kids decide what their costume’s going to be, and we get it all together pretty early,” she said. “We do a dry run, and then if there needs to be any fixes, we have enough time to fix them.”

The reason is the one every parent recognizes. “The worst thing is your kid crying on the night because they hate their costume and they have nothing else to go as. That’s just the worst. And it happened one year, and so I will never have that happen again.” She credits her own anxiety: “I have a lot of anxiety, so I troubleshoot things.” As parenting advice goes, it is cheaper than most.

What a dry run actually looks like

Four weeks out is the sweet spot, and this weekend is exactly four weeks out. Put the whole costume on, not just the top half. Walk a block in it, carrying the candy bucket, because the bucket is where wings and capes go wrong. If there is a mask, try it over a jacket, since October 31 is a Saturday this year and your kid will be outside in it all day, not for an hour after school. Shoes go on a real sidewalk. Tails and wands go into the car seat. Anything that pinches, itches, drags or falls off gets fixed or swapped now, while the store still has the size and the backup costume is still a choice rather than a panic.

Then hang it somewhere visible. A costume a child can see for a month is a costume they have already committed to, which is most of the battle.

The pumpkin trick

Her second hack is for the jack-o’-lanterns. “I spray them with spray paint. My favorite is when you do gold metallic or a silver metallic, because if you spray the inside too, when you put the candle in there, the whole thing is lit up and metallic-y and super fun.” It is not just for looks: in California the early-carved pumpkins collapse and the squirrels eat them, and the paint stops both. She has done glitter too. She recommends glitter.

The rest of the context

The Reese’s Halloween Council is Ricci, Kathy Najimy and three creators, picking America’s Trick-or-Treatiest Street from a list of 150 that Reese’s built from a survey of 15,000 residents plus candy, costume and decoration sales. The winner is announced October 21 and gets a block party with Zillow. The full interview is at Scary Mommy. Photo of Christina Ricci at Los Angeles Comic Con 2024 by Kev (PaulLim11) via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

If the dry run reveals that the costume is really pajamas, two brands in the club make the good ones: Primary’s organic Halloween sets are $34 and Posh Peanut’s printed classics are $40, both in sizes that match an older sibling. See the Primary offer → See the Posh Peanut offer →