The Hoaglands (the people with the great Addams Family portrait) have a fantastic annual Halloween party to celebrate their children’s birthdays. Each year that we have gone we have been in themed costumes, from the very basic black like Matrix in 2007, to vampire hunters in 2008, to the “Princess and the Paparazzi” in 2009 to the first surprise costume of “greasers” in 2010 in response to Candace and David’s 50’s preppy (their children were Marilyn Monroe and Elvis). In 2010 we were the Red Hot Chili Peppers when Curie was born.
Then, coming back from a trip to Europe the night before in 2012, we were desperate for costumes so at Home Depot we were inspired and showed up as “safety inspectors” (Albert made Curie’s vest out of duct tape). David did not miss a beat and cried out to the kids “Oh no! The safety inspectors are here we have to shut down the haunted house!” All the kids went, “Oh no!” We wrote tickets like “improper storage of weapons,” and “misuse of time travel.” Since then, and with Steve and Julie to be with us, we have tried to top this. Last year in 2013, we came as party security and went even more meta with 50 VIP badges for kids, people weren’t sure even though Erin was pregnant and Curie was 2. Kids even thought you needed VIP badges to get into the haunted house (which they didn’t). A lot of people thought there was really security at the party and asked us questions to that effect.
This year we thought we couldn’t top last year when we were inspired and went even more meta. This year we crashed the party as “Concept Catering” saying we had always catered the party, fliered the party with 100 fliers with fake Yelp reviews that only highlighted good words from bad reviews. We even put an Ad for this year’s “Hoagland Chirstmas Party, even bigger than this one,” which does not actually exist. We put table tents on all the food (which we did not make) like “Cheesy Poofs, we only licked one,” and “Not Meat, Not Vegetable Either.” Curie handed out business cards (maybe 50 of them) that referenced a non-existent .ru web address. Curie was the best and seriously passed food on her tray. Albert followed and did passed hors devours in full character for an hour. One gentleman was mad when he asked Steve “when does more pumpkin bread come out,” and Steve, eating the last piece holding a beer said “I dunno.”
Someone there gave us a great idea for next year but we’ll see if we can pull it off.