The Joke That Keeps On Giving…My Son Rocked My Costume 33 Years Later!

The year I turned a year old, my parents made a chiropractor joke with my Halloween costume. Instead of dressing me up as a pumpkin or tiny superhero, they popped me into a black onesie decorated with white bones and put a white cap on my head. I looked like a little skeleton!

All of their chiropractor friends thought it was hilarious. My parents were both chiropractors at the time, and they didn’t even need to dress up to be on theme. The story came up last year when I was talking to my mom about how Marah and I would dress Bennett for his first Halloween.

“You don’t have a costume picked out?” she asked. “Let me see if I can dig up your skeleton outfit — I know I still have it somewhere.”

Amazingly, she was right! I swear my mom never throws away a thing. Stuffed animals, toys, crayon drawings, my first baby blanket … she still has all of it. It didn’t take much investigating before she pulled out the 33-year-old Halloween costume from who knows where.

Somehow, the fabric hadn’t fallen apart in the box. And it fit Bennett! Marah and I squeezed him into the outfit and carried our little skeleton from business to business during our church’s Halloween party. Every year, the church closes down Main Street for a Halloween celebration. The fire department shows up to hand out candy, and folks wander from house to house and business to business with their kids to pick up treats.

Marah and I are already looking forward to taking Bennett to the party again this year. We won’t have to carry him this time: He’s old enough to run around and collect candy on his own two feet. If I’m lucky, someone will give him a box of Nerds or a little bag of sour gummies, and I’ll be able to sneak it out of his bag when he isn’t looking.

Marah and I already know exactly how we plan to spend Halloween, but we still haven’t chosen a costume for Bennett. Right now, I’m leaning toward dressing him up as a tiny farmer. He loves farm animals, and he’s never happier than when he’s toddling through the grass on a farm or touching sheep at the petting zoo. I think he’d like the idea of being a farmer for the night.

It’s crazy to think that one day soon, Bennett will be old enough to choose his own Halloween costumes and trick-or-treat without us. I hope he has as much fun as I did when I was a kid. My friends and I ran from house to house in my hometown filling our bags with a ridiculous amount of candy. Then, we took the spoils back to my friend’s place and stayed up way too late trading our favorite candies. Looking back, those negotiations were probably my very first business deals.

I have dozens of great Halloween memories, and I can’t wait to make more with my family this year. If you want to get into the Halloween spirit, I know exactly where you should start: by decorating your office! It’s fun and it’s good business. To learn why, check out our 3 Reasons to Decorate Your Office blog post!

Happy Halloween from my family to yours, -Josh Walker