Dear mouse,
Among those who called during long weekend was a former office mate of mine in a company I worked for four years. We enjoyed 17 holidays. Yeah no kidding. During special holidays, we can wear costumes in the office that may be relevant to the events we’re celebrating. It is not only during Halloween that we wear costumes, baby.
A week before July 4, the Human resources holds contest for costumes that are in the spirit of Independence Day. When I was there, some came dressed like a Statue of Liberty; others wore the red-white and blue flag-inspired costumes. There were many male employees who were dressed like Abe Lincoln; others dressed as pilgrims or colonial men and women.
But it is during Halloween when we enjoyed the costume wearing event. We can choose the costume we would like to wear for the contest. We are not restricted to witch-warlock –ghost-dead-people sort of costumes. Some came as movie characters such as Fiona; TV comedy icon like Lucille Ball ; some were angels with halos on their heads and some male employees dressed like their superheroes. The most popular however were Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean.
When I was still new in that organization, I was sewing my own costumes and that of my office mate. So we were only limited to vampire or witch costumes which required nothing but oversized long black dress, black hat with made-up broomsticks from my kitchen closet.
We both came from an ethnic group where costume wearing in the workplace is not yet in vogue. It made us think how creative those people are with fabulous costumes. Clueless me. Clueless us.
It was the costume that forged a bond between me and my office mate so I asked her who’s doing now her little costumes. Little did we know that those “creative” office mates of ours were actually just ordering their Halloween costumes at the convenience of their homes. This, she found out when she was desperate to find one that would suit her—may be in the children’s department. She was not even five feet in height.
I checked and I saw that there is a large variety of themed costumes designed for infants, children, adults and pets. The pet costumes are simply adorable. Meow.
I do not have to use my spreadsheet to know which is more cost efficient, to buy or to make. I realized that it is cheaper to buy the costumes and accessories because they are sold at very competitive prices rather than shopping for the costume materials; spending hours of designing and putting them together to be used only for one day event.
Yes, Virginia, we were allowed to bring the pets and the kids in the whole day affair of judging which culminated into the awarding ceremony before the end of the day. The pets wore costumes too. They were cute. So were the kids who were mostly dressed as princesses or their favorite cartoon character. It was a family affair.
So I asked her what costume does she want to wear this year. She is musing to dress as a pirate lady. whoa. What about her chihuahua?
During United Nations Day, we came with our native dress from our country of origin. It was a diversified organization so it was not a surprise to see people dressed in Vietnamese costume, Korean, Japanese, Africans, Scots and other nationalities. I was the only Filipina so I was proud to wear the Maria Clara.
Need I describe to you what we wear during Christmas?
The Ca t
