Halloween

Costumes for the school party and for the 31st:

the two dates bring in different buyers. Parents shop first, because many schools hold their costume party for Día del Niño at the start of October, and with the school year closing that same month, most children have outgrown the outfit by the following October. Adults buy later, for parties on the night itself, and spend more on a single convincing piece: a latex mask, a good wig, a cape that hangs properly. Decorations, from cobwebs to skeletons and blow-up pumpkins for the porch, are bought by both. A Roman soldier costume made for a procession belongs under Easter.

El Sombrerón’s hat and the Siguanaba’s horse head:

Guatemala’s own ghosts make better costumes than another vampire, and are rarely sold ready-made. El Sombrerón is a small man in black with a guitar and a hat wide enough to hide his face, so the hat is the costume. The Siguanaba has a woman’s long hair and a horse’s head, which leaves everything resting on the mask. La Llorona is the easiest to put together: long dark hair, a veil and a long dress, white or black depending on which version of the story you grew up with. Because these are assembled from parts, a well-made hat or horse head is worth listing on its own.

Children’s costume sizes and licensed characters:

most costumes are cut to US sizing, where the number on the label is not the child’s age: a Medium marked 8–10 fits most five-to-seven-year-olds. Buy by height, and between two sizes take the larger, since a long hem can be taken up and a costume that pulls at the crotch cannot be fixed. Licensed characters from makers such as Rubie’s or Disguise carry the licence on the tag and tend to have sewn details where cheaper copies print them onto thin polyester. Printed ones look tired after one wash, so check the tag before paying a licensed price.

Costume prices in quetzales, and the bargain bale underneath them:

a simple child’s costume starts around Q50 new, a complete one with its accessories runs to about Q250, and imported deluxe adult costumes sit above that. The floor for a used one is lower: bales of second-hand clothing turn up loose costumes for Q10 or Q20, missing pieces and in no particular size. A pre-owned costume earns more than that by being everything a costume from the bale is not: complete, washed, sized on the label and on offer in early October rather than on the 30th.

Latex masks, inflatables and animatronic skeletons after a year in a box:

latex suffers most in storage. A mask kept in a hot room or a parked car dries out, cracks at the folds or turns sticky, so flex it gently and look inside before you agree on anything. Inflatable costumes and porch figures run on a small fan: switch it on, let it fill and listen for a hiss. On animatronics, open the battery compartment, because batteries left in since last October leak and eat the contacts. Lay a costume next to the original photo, since hats, gloves and belts go missing first, and check the collar and cuffs for makeup and fake blood. Light strings fail the same way as their Christmas cousins, so plug every one in.

When to list a costume your child has outgrown:

September, before the school parties, is when parents are looking; by 1 November nobody is. Give the size on the label and the height of the child who wore it, list every piece and say plainly if one is missing. Photograph it laid flat with all its parts, then worn, and say whether it has been washed. For a decoration, give its height, what powers it and whether every light, movement and sound still works. Parents often come to collect with the child in tow to hold the costume up against, so say whether it can be tried on when they arrive.