If you have come to this page by way of QR code at the party, go to this link to go directly to the Hoagland Party album. Pictures of children and families start on page 3 or 4. You are also welcome to read the history of our elaborate costumes below or peruse our site.
We’ve been going to the Hoagland Halloween Party ever since we moved down to the DC area in 2007. It is Bella’s birthday party and the first one she had turned four, the same age Curie is this year. This collage is a little history of our costumes over the years, plus the marketing material for this year’s costume.
The first few years we just dressed in what was available, black Matrix in 2007, a cheap prom dress for the Princess and the Paparazzi in 2008, and Vampire Hunters in 2009, which was basically just black clothes again with swords.
In 2010, the Hoaglands told us they were dressing up as 50s people, Bella as Marilyn Monroe, Quin as Elvis and Candace and David as preppies. In our first year of themed costumes, we surprised them as greasers with switch-blade combs and leather jackets. In 2011, Curie had just been born and while Albert wanted to dress her up as a maggot (white hat and blanket- he has a picture) Erin was not as sanguine about the idea. So we found this great chili pepper outfit and decided to come as the Red Hot Chili Peppers with band shirts and red pepper hats. Something easy to move around in so we could take care of Curie.
In 2012, we had taken Curie to London and Paris and had arrived back the day before the party. We had no idea what to be. We were in Home Depot the day of the party and decided to buy hard hats and high-visibility vests, caution tape, and clip boards to be safety inspectors. This was right after Hurricane Irene, and Sandy, so it was appropriate. We ran around to toy stores to find a hat for Curie, and Albert made Curie a high-visibility vest out of yellow duct tape on the way to the party. Curie’s hat was yellow so we made her the boss. Erin said she had never had a hat that fit so well. This was also the first time that Steve and Julie were around for the party having just moved down. This was our first meta costume and as we arrived, David had the presence of mind to say “oh no! the haunted house safety inspectors are here, we’ll have to shut down the haunted house!” All the kids bought it and began to be upset. Curie had a great time handing out our tickets for infractions. We wrote tickets for inappropriate weapon storage, Julie wrote one for inappropriate time travel on a broken clock. We had a great time, it was such a great costume for such short notice.
The next year in 2013, we decided to do another themed costume and wanted to be meta again, so we arrived in security shirts for the event. People actually commented that the party had gotten so big that they had to hire security. The funniest part was that Erin was 8 months pregnant and Curie was dressed in the same outfit. People asked what company we worked for. Albert made us badges and 30-50 VIP “back stage badges.” We also bought a velvet rope to work the door. This is all without letting the Hoaglands know what we were doing, so a velvet rope showed up in front of their haunted house, and Curie was passing out VIP badges. Soon people were saying that you needed a badge to enter the haunted house, and older kids were giving theirs to younger kids. It was really funny.
For 2014 we didn’t know what we could do to top the Security theme. It had to be meta, and we all had to be in the same costume. Ironically it would be better than anything we could hope for. We arrived at the Hoaglands as their caterers (though we did not make the food, we just took credit for it). Concept Catering, a mediocre catering company with slogans like “trying our best not to ruin your party,” and “when you can’t afford the best.” Having been to the party every year, we knew the menu so we made place cards for all the food like: “Vegetarian meatballs made with the best meat,” or “fingernail cookies, one of them is real.” That one was funny because at the end of the party there was one left over. We made flyers with bad Yelp reviews that highlighted chosen words to look like we had good reviews. People really thought we were the caterers. Albert stayed in character passing food for an hour. Steve was eating the last piece of pie and a person asked when new pie would come out. Steve just shrugged and irritated the person. It was Elia’s first party, and she was dressed up as the head chef. Curie LOVED her costume and really passed out food, where Candace remarked that she normally doesn’t get to eat but Curie was feeding her. We passed out business cards with a Russian web address and put up flyers that referenced the “Hoagland Holiday Party, it is even bigger,” there is no such party, but people kept asking Bella about it and a woman even showed up on the date we put on the flyer a few months later. We also learned that caterers are not treated very well by guests.
This year we really felt like we couldn’t top the catering and have put together a meta costume as entertainment for the party. We were going to be an acapella group or show choir as entertainment that would not actually perform. We were going to have set lists, a raffle to raise money for our costumes for national and so on. We needed to make marketing materials, and because Julie was sick and all the costume parts were not available yet, Albert made an intentionally bad-Photoshop group picture for our poster and handbill/postcards. While we were planning Erin came up with an idea that made it funny enough for us to feel like it was worthy of a follow up to Concept Catering. We would be the nation’s first and only mime acapella group. As of this writing we have not actually been to the party yet, but we are going in tuxedo t-shirts, white gloves, and berets. We plan to poster and flyer their party with our marketing materials passing out the postcards. Read our poster for our gags, after the party we will update this post for how it went.
