The Kid is attending her first ever Middle School Halloween Costume Party this evening. This is a major event, a turning point in her social calendar, which I might add, is generally busier than my own and Mrs. Marketman’s. The Kid was agonizing over her costume 
for many days and finally decided to take her inspiration from the Phantom of the Opera. She designed her own dress (and I mean literally drew up her own design on a piece of paper) complete with preferred colors, asymmetric hemline and ruffles in strategic places. Thankfully, my sister-in-law agreed to sew it up and got it ready in a just a few days. The Kid also wanted to make a mask with feathers and with a quick trip to Divisoria, Mrs. Marketman got a basic black mask for PHP40 and an ostrich, peacock and several chicken feathers in the requested color scheme. Take out a glue gun, some synthetic gems and The Kid made her mask completely on her own… I think she could be ready for Project Runway, the pre-teen edition… looks pretty cool, don’t you think???
23 Responses
The Kid will be the most dressed Christine Daée of all times. I can tell through my crystal ball she will come home with the best costume trophy award. Thanks for the team efforts in getting her costume ready for one of the big days in her life. I can picture her looking very pretty in that costume. Tell the Kid to have good time!
Way to go, Kid! I’m sure you will be the belle of the ball!!! HAppy Halloween to you and your supportive parents!
Oh those days . I used to design their halloweeen costumes before they turned to teenagers. When they became teens, they were able to innovate and came up with original designs. Who knows your daughter will be our future designer. Hope your daughter will have loads of fun.
i will definitely be rooting for her. she can give jay, chloe and jeffrey a run for their money!
cute!!! she also specified what she wants!! oh my, kids these days!! i wonder what my daughters would be asking when the time comes… as long as they would stay with me and their dad for the longest time, am willing to give them everything!! hahaha!
Cool!!! I love the Kid design. I can’t imagine how busy Mr. and Mrs. Marketman for this evening social event. Have fun and Happy Halloween to the Kid and the ever supportive Mr. and Mrs. Marketman!
Even at a young age, your Kid is showing the same passion as yours be it in anything that you do.
Happy Halloween to Marketman, Mrs. Marketman and the Kid!
Oh wow, The Kid is tres creative. The apple sure did not fall far from the tree.
Out of curiosity, how did filipinos come up with Halloween?
Reminds me of years when I used to make my kids costume (for the Harvest Festival at our church – not Halloween) My oldest daughter, then 11, dressed up as a Renaissance princess complete with crown and scepter. My 8yr old son – Robin Hood, had to borrow his ate’s black tight leggings to make the outfit look authentic, and sporting bow & arrow accessory made out of barbeque stick and construction paper. He got 3rd place in the competition for this cheap ensemble. My 1yr old was a Brown M&M – made with round brown pillow with the distinctive “M” imprint. The kids loved helping mom with the costumes. I loved it because they were dirt cheap to make; costumes at PartyCity, Partytime or even Wal Mart would have been over $15 for each. 10 years ago $45-$50 for 3 costumes worn only once was and still is ridiculous (to me, at least).
MM,
Don’t forget to post pics when she’s off to the ball ok?
MM
Do Filipinos have trick or treats on the 31st?
Susan, yup, many parts of the city now do trick or treating, particularly villages. And this year, I noticed more MALLS are doing it so that a wider group of participants can enjoy the holiday with kids dressing up and heading with their parents to the malls that then have the stores give out candy… a bit bizarre but it makes the holiday a bit more accessible…
Lol…
Susan, Filipinos really don’t have trick or treat on the 31st. Never had it. We do embrace “All Souls Day”. That much I do know.
MM, Halloween is part of our traditional culture? The six years that I’ve been there, never witnessed anyone with costumes. None whatsoever. Where the heck does the PI come up with this custom?
its genetic MM. . . mana sa iyo. . . creative and has taste…
Jean, if you could see the malls now. Village trick or treating in Manila started in the 1970’s…today tens of thousands of kids engage in this… and now the malls have picked it up. Shoemart sells tens of thousands of costumes and masks from their department stores per season…
MM, we’re a bunch of sell outs. When and if I ever go back to the PI I want to see what our culture is all about. I don’t want to go back and see the things that I’ve grown up with. Whats sad is, my kids will never see true Filipino culture cuz its so friggin’ westernized.
Bow our heads in shame.
Jean, one side of me agrees with your view… However, the other says we are precisely incredibly adaptable and take on new things as the culture evolves, for better or worse. It is precisely this characteristic that has allowed over 8-10 million Filipinos to assimilate so quickly in nearly every country on the globe… Notice how we quickly are absorbed into countries from Northern Europe to Australia to Africa and North America… we were a “damaged” culture in the negative sense from Spanish colonial times, but a positive “melting pot” of sorts during the same period…
MM, I’ve lived in Europe for three years in the local economy and never have I seen any of the locals “copy” American culture. I would say that, more or less, Europeans detested Americans in their community. That told me a whole lot.
Adaptable?! I find that an insult to our own self worth. So in other words, every Tom, Dick or Harry can screw us over and we are willing to accept that because we are adaptable?! Are we whores?! Adaptable?! We shouldn’t be! What ever happened to our “Ako’y Pilipino” speech. Worthless now, eh?
I recall (about a decade ago) the Filipino baseball team who cheated in the league and was disqualified for lying about their age. It was all over the news here in the states. Yea, we Filipino/Americans bowed our heads in shame. We had to face that. Yeah, WE CAN BE PROUD OF THAT……… Yet it doesn’t phase you guys to still feel the need to take anothers identity and make it your own.
I’m not upset, just wish we, as Filipinos got our head screwed on straight and thought for a change instead of thinking of what makes it cool to “copy” our western neighbors (who, by the way, don’t want us here to begin with).
Geez, take pride of who we are. We are Filipinos and we should stay that way!
Jean, why don’t you move home then instead of reaping the benefits of living in a Western society but feeling so adamant about it? Why not do something to encourage our cultural heritage? Why not leave comments in fully fluent Pilipino? Adaptable doesn’t mean we have no self-worth…I think that is bit strong, no? As for the Ako’y Pilipino speech, 70+% of the population were never native Pilipino (a made up National language, predominantly tagalog, I might add) speakers and the ones that are are often lacking in fluency so that speech is gone… And how can we be proud of countrymen who CHEATED on a baseball game? Are you saying we copied the cheating or is that a typically national trait??? Hmmm… As for taking on other’s traditions, what about Christmas, New Year’s Eve, the Three Kings, Easter penetence, November 1st, Labor Day, Lent, Chinese New Year, etc. HAVEN’T WE TAKEN ALL OF THOSE HOLIDAYS FROM OTHER CULTURES?!?! At what point would you consider us pure Filipino, before the Spaniards arrived in the 1500’s, before the Chinese traders, the Malay cousins, the Vietnamese tourists in the 800’s??? When do we do the cut-off? Should we all gather around the rice bowl and do a fertility dance as they do in Bontoc or Sagada…what is NATIVE, after all? I’m not really sure that we have a single native holiday… even a fiesta is imported! Even most of our names are IMPORTED! And why should Europeans adopt anything American when European culture is incredibly old itself and far more developed at the time the U.S. even declared its independence (not to make light of native Americans who roamed the plains before…but not many Americans today send smoke signals)… It’s partially in jest and partially serious…how can you diss Halloween when we celebrate Christmas, et al with such gusto?
Bravo, that is an excellent point of view, Marketman. I am truly enjoying this website.
hi, im from umagang kayganda, morning show of abs-cbn, im interested to feature the kids couture halloween party custome, just want to know the contact numbers
tnx