At the stroke of ten o'clock I turned off the porch lights and called it a night. Nothing good happens after 10:00 pm on Halloween night (just ask the idiot doctor down the street who gives out erasers), and I'm almost out of candy anyway.
Phew! We made it, gang!
Also at the stroke of ten o'clock I switched gears, said goodnight to the non-alcoholic Swedish Autumnal Punch, and made myself a nice gin martini to celebrate... something.
Halloween! That's it, I'm celebrating Halloween. Find below the official stats from The List, my thoughts on the cultural zeitgeist in a changing world, and what it means for Star Wars Land at Disneyland.
Here it is, the hot-off-the-presses final tally from
The List 2019, and proof that I've turned off the porch lights and switched from a Swedish punch to a British martini.
View attachment 422128
As you can see the final tally ended up as this:
Chewbacca - 1
Stormtroopers - 4
Kylo Ren - 0
Rey - 0
Vi Moradi* - 0
Ky'le from Tustin - 0
Hondo - 0
I had one
Chewbacca early in the night, who was a dad escorting his two young daughters who were some sort of video game thing. I had 4
Stormtroopers, and they came in three sets; two different boys who were older brothers of girls dressed as frilly princess things, and then two teenage boys escorting their dates, and their dates were dressed up as matching German beer maidens. I kid you not. Apparently they only coordinated their costumes with their friends instead of their dates. Hindsight is 20-20.
Those were the only Star Wars characters I got tonight, and that's a huge change. Earlier in the 2010's I would get lots of family units dressed as full Star Wars characters. And at least a few young ladies as Princess Leia, and boys as Darth Vader, dad as Chewbacca, etc. But no longer. The Star Wars presence was the weakest I've seen in over a decade. And no Poe. No Finn. Also no Fantastic Beasts or any blue aliens from Pandora. Again.
And absolutely no one showed up as anyone remotely related to anyone in Star Wars Land. No
Kylo Ren. No
Rey. No
Vi Moradi* or
Honda Accord.
Not even a
Ky'le from Tustin, which is very easy to pull off in Tustin adjacent communities.
My coveted Best Costume awards with the See's Candy baskets went to;
Best Boy Costume - An incredibly realistic young Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Girl Costume - A junior high aged young lady who was a drop-dead-ringer for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in a business suit, and instead of saying
"trick or treat!" she said in a Kardashian accent
"Like, can I have some candy, before, like, the world ends?" I died! Her mom was 10 feet behind and whom I know by seeing around the neighborhood, and when I awarded her daughter the Best Costume award she seemed more excited than her daughter.
Best Family Costume - This was a wild card, but it was a family who had dressed up as the crew from that hilarious CBC comedy Schitt's Creek. Dad was Mr. Rose, mom was Mrs. Rose, daughter was Alexis, and son was Mayor Schitt. Again, I died. The families in my neighborhood really go all out!
I had about 110 trick-or-treaters. I had 60 Reese's and 60 Hershey bars, plus my three Best Costume Awards baskets from See's Candy. I have a dozen candy bars left.
But again, what's interesting is how the Star Wars fad that was so rampant earlier in the 2010's has totally dropped off. I had a lot of Marvel superheros, I had a smattering of classic Disney princesses (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, that Hawaiian one, etc.). I had a whole bunch of gory monsters. I had some weird video game people that I'm unclear on. I had a surprising number of political figures (AOC, two President Trumps, and a dad being a really creepy Adam Schiff). I had ghouls and ghosts. I had a few zombies. I had some older boys dressed up as military guys. Earlier in the evening I had a lot of little boys dressed as firefighters and policemen, which was so cute as Halloween always coincides with fire season in SoCal. And dozens of girls dressed as various sparkly princesses.
But Star Wars? It wasn't really very popular this year.
And absolutely no one dressed as any of the Star Wars Land Batuu characters. It seems that Star Wars fad has passed, or been tapped out, or the new movies just aren't resonating with people. Or all of that combined.
The times seem to be changing.
At least my martini is still the same! I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!
