Trick or treat!

So I am torn between two Halloween costume ideas for my three-year-old, and maybe you can help by offering up your opinion. Believe it or not, on matters such as this, my boy is still not very opinionated, and if I were to ask his opinion, it would fluctuate daily or be both, neither of which would be any help to me in deciding. Keep in mind our Halloween activities are pretty much limited to the big day itself -- we usually meet up with the cousins that live a few blocks away for trick-or-treating, followed by a trip to our church for the big fun fall festival complete with his favorite, the pony rides. And before anyone goes off on me for getting so excited about Halloween costumes, here is my personal take on the holiday, in a nutshell: I am a Christian, but a Christian who sees the importance in a good imagination, and who even enjoys a few books and movies now and then (cough cough, Harry Potter, cough cough) that have witches and magic in them (banish me now, I tell ya'). I don't really make a big deal out of the holiday -- you probably won't find witches and other such decor at my house, mostly just pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, oh and owls and black cats maybe -- but I did grow up trick-or-treating every year and lived to tell about it without joining the occult, so any children in our house will enjoy the same.

Moving on -- do I order the oh-so-adorable United States Postal Worker costume (representative of the days he makes me want to go postal? I kid, I kid...)?


Or do we go down an entirely different path and have Mama make the Dragon Slayer costume?


I started out completely gung-ho on ordering the mailman costume -- who doesn't love the classic idea of a mailman, and he could put his candy in that bag to boot. (At least I think he could; sometimes on the mass-produced costumes, what you think might be an option may not be. I don't know for sure if the bag is usable.) But then, while at the local JoAnn's yesterday, picking up some batting, I sat down for fun to look through the pattern books (who am I kidding, I was totally wasting time since I was kid-free) and spied the Dragon Slayer costume. My little man loves Dragon Tales on PBS and anything related to dragons and swords and such. Then again, my kid + large plastic sword (which we already own) + church "Fall Festival" could = good times, good times. I'm already picturing in my mind parents and other children running away screaming from my toddler armed with a plastic sword. We'd definitely have to have a few come to Jesus talks about proper plastic sword etiquette. On the other hand, he is fascinated by our mail slot in our house and loves to go with me to our post office where every worker knows him by name, which, of course, in my brain translates to "plenty of great photo opp's". My only worries with the mailman costume are 1. quality, and 2. will the hat stay on his head.

I don't want the decision to be about store-bought versus made-by-me. I've done both in the past, so that really isn't a factor. His first Halloween he was the blue octopus from Babystyle (which they don't have this year), last year he was a skunk (ordered online and not the best quality, but cute nonetheless), and the year before my son came home I had made a frog prince costume for my nephew, hence the costume-making experience. (Here is the frog prince costume, bottom left):

It was dang cute, if I do say so myself. Hmm, decisions, decisions...