Holiday takes a year of advance planning

Now, true, most kids get inspired by the outfits they saw the night before and talk about what they want to be next year, but for Buzz, it is Serious Business. Having been exposed to The Little Shop of Horrors by his singing, dancing, acting brother, he's decided he wants to be the man-eating plant Audrey II. It could have been worse, I guess. He could have wanted to be Audrey I.

In the next 11 months, Buzz sketched a blueprint of the costume, complete with the mechanical rigging that will allow the giant pod to open its mouth and stick out its barbed tongue. He's made mock-ups and prototypes, experimented with papier-mâché and spent an entire afternoon swaddled in an old flannel sleeping bag like a lump caterpillar, to see if it would be usable in his Grand Concept.

My husband looked over the plans. An engineer himself, he had to admit they were pretty good.

"He may be the next Buckminster Fuller," he said.

"Mmmm. Or the next Boy from Oz," I murmured back.

I finally convinced Buzz that the whole Grand Concept was not going to work because schools no longer allow costumes that cover the face.

That, of course, only led to Grand Concept, Take 2, in which he creates a false arm that appears to be holding a flower pot, out of which he will have the tiny, root-bound version of Audrey II as a sock puppet.

"That," I said, "will work."

But I didn't begin construction, because after so many years, so many sons and so many Halloween, I know what's coming next. No matter what costumes we have on hand or we've already made, the child will change his mind a month before the big night.

"Mom, is there anywhere we can buy coconuts?" Buzz asked the other day.

"Sure, but why?"

"I've decided I want to be King Arthur for Halloween."

Those of you who know The Lumberjack Song and can recite every line from The Dead Parrot sketch are laughing by now. Yes, once again I have to blame the costume choice on his singing, dancing, acting brother -- and John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Somewhere, somehow, Buzz watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." He now wants to be King Arthur, but only a Monty Python King Arthur, with two halves of a coconut to clop together to imitate the sound of a horse.

I guess I should be relieved. We have all he needs for this costume, thanks to May days at the renaissance fair in Triune and friends in the Society of Creative Anachronism. All we need are the coconuts. Of course, my husband said, we should probably get a toy bird, a sparrow.

"Ah," I said. "But an English sparrow or an African sparrow?"

Whatever happened to hobos, witches and mummies? They weren't real imaginative, but boy, they were easy to make. Ben, the 17-year-old singing, dancing and acting big brother, has decided he's going to be Jack Skellington from "Nightmare Before Christmas" this year for the National Honor Society's party. (Yes, Mr. Depp is Number One in the Reeves household.) This decision made me very happy -- since he's 6-foot-6 inches, and about as big around as my wrist, and he already has a tuxedo for his chorus group, I'm off the hook for this costume. A little white face paint, a skull cap, and he's Jack, the Pumpkin King.

I have, by the way, decided Ben is no longer allowed to pick movies for Buzz to watch. I can just see his idea list for next year's costume -- A zombie from "Shawn of the Dead"? A pink cashmere-wearing cross-dressing terrible movie director from "Ed Wood"? Maybe Slim Pickens' character from Dr. Strangelove ... no, that's out of the question. Buzz won't watch anything in black and white.

Sigh. That means no witches, mummies or hoboes, doesn't it?

-- Mary Reeves is a staff writer for the Times-Gazette.