Halloween / Community · 5 min read

Costume Planning Starts Now (and What to Do With Last Year's)

Here's the thing nobody accounts for in September: it will be about 38 degrees on Halloween night, and your kid picked a costume designed for a photo shoot in California.

Every year there's a moment around 6:15pm where a child in a beautiful thin polyester costume stands in a driveway shaking, and a parent makes the executive decision to put a winter coat over the whole thing. The costume disappears. The kid is furious. Somebody cries, and it isn't always the kid.

It's avoidable. It just takes deciding a few things in September instead of October 30th.

Buy for the temperature, not the picture

Wisconsin averages somewhere in the 30s and 40s on Halloween night, and it has snowed on trick-or-treaters here more than once.

So when you're picking, ask one question: can this go over a layer?

Costumes that work in the cold are the ones with room built in. Anything oversized. Anything with a full-body base. Robes, capes, coveralls, inflatables, animal onesies, anything hooded.

Costumes that fight you: leotards, tutus with bare legs, anything strapless, anything sleeveless, anything that requires a specific fitted silhouette to read as the character.

Order a size up. This is the single best move. A size up means a thermal layer fits underneath and nobody has to choose between warm and recognizable.

Layer from the inside

The trick is putting the warmth under the costume so the costume still shows.

Thermal base layer. A thin fleece or wool top and bottom disappears under almost anything and does most of the work.

Fleece-lined tights under a dress or tutu. Nobody can tell. Your kid stays out an extra forty minutes.

Hand warmers in the candy bucket. Not in the pockets, where they get forgotten — in the bucket, where hands keep going anyway.

Warm boots, not costume shoes. Costume shoes are made of cardboard and optimism. Boots that match roughly in color read fine in the dark, and your kid can actually walk two miles.

A hat that works with the costume. Or a hood built in. Most body heat complaints trace back to a bare head.

Build in the escape hatch

Whatever the costume is, have one layer that can go on over it without ruining the look — a matching cape, a dark hoodie under a robe, an oversized flannel if the costume can absorb it.

Decide what that layer is now, while you're calm, so you're not improvising in a driveway at 6:15.

Make it work at a party, too

Costumes get worn indoors more than people plan for. Ours get worn at a party in a barn, at a trunk-or-treat, and at school.

Two things to check: can they see? and can they go to the bathroom alone?

Masks that block peripheral vision are genuinely miserable for a six-year-old in a crowd, and face paint beats a mask almost every time. And a costume that requires an adult to disassemble it is a costume you will resent by 5:45.

Also check whether the school has rules. Most around here ban weapons, full masks, and anything gory, which is worth knowing before you buy.

What to do with last year's costumes

You have a bin. Everybody has a bin. It's full of costumes that fit nobody in your house anymore, and you've moved it twice.

We'll take them.

We're hosting a free Costume Exchange on Wednesday, October 1, from 5:30 to 7pm here at the farm, co-hosted with The Loaded Tray and Hardwood Hoops Academy. Free costumes for kids who need them. No income check, no forms, no questions — you come, you pick, you go.

To donate: bring clean, gently used costumes to the farm any day we're open, 10am to 6pm, right up until the exchange. We're taking monetary donations too, which go toward filling the gaps — we always end up short on certain sizes.

To take: just show up on the 1st. That's the whole process.

If it makes the difference between a kid trick-or-treating and a kid staying home, it's worth the trip out here with a bin, and we'd rather those costumes be on somebody than in your basement.

Then come wear it

The Halloween Party is Thursday, October 29, from 5:30 to 7pm. Tickets are $15 per kid and $5 for adults, and we cap it at 300 kids so it doesn't turn into a crush.

Kid tickets include the petting zoo, the corn maze and corn pit, the photo booth, games and prizes, a goodie bag, trunk-or-treat, and entry into the costume prize drawing.

It sold out last year. It's the one ticketed event of our fall season, so a season pass doesn't cover it — grab tickets ahead at midwest-harvest-hills.square.site.

Costumes are also welcome any day you visit during Superhero and Princess weekend, October 24 and 25, and on Halloween itself.

We're open daily 10am to 6pm through October 31. Plan your visit →