Is It Too Early to Plan for Halloween...The Don't you Dare Tell Me Otherwise Edition.

Hi, My Name is Dana and I have a Halloween problem. It is the darndest thing, I look forward to Summer every year. The neon pink and the summery colors, clothes, and cocktails (all my favorite C's) and the moment Summer happens, and my birthday has passed, the countdown to Halloween has begun...

I am not the least bit apologetic about it. I love everything about Halloween. I love the decorating and the spooky movies and dressing the kids up for way longer than just one night. We do 31 days of Halloween over here people...That is right! 31. Days. Of. Halloween! Give me all the Halloween-y garb whether it be shirts or costumes. Give me basic girl pumpkin spice everything and spooky desert baking with the kids while Halloween music on Spotify is playing in the background. Taking out our Halloween decorations is a full on affair that involves ordering in and watching some sort of Halloween movie on Disney+. There is just no stopping the Halloween vibe once the first sign of orange and black hits the shelves.

My MIL is equally obsessed with the holiday. We had taken the Halloween Disney Cruise three years ago (If you are on the fence about which one to take, I will always say the Halloween cruise). we had planned on it with Commodore, but he hadn't turned six months yet, so we opted for the Star Wars one instead (EV met Ahsoka so all was right in the world) and unfortunately with the pandemic being the way it is we opted for not cruising until next year (and even then that is now up in the air....thank goodness for a cancellation policy). However, we ALWAYS spend the holiday together and plan something fun for the kids (we did a whole social distanced thing last year at my MILS and it was still over the top) and this year is no different. We couldn't book it for the weekend of actual Halloween, but we ended up getting the cabins at Fort Wilderness for the weekend before and I couldn't be more excited if I tried.

We are already planning the decorations and what we can bring with us to give the cabins a spooky Halloween feeling. I haven't told Sean yet, but I am really considering getting THIS when it is released at Target for the outside (it sold out super fast online). I am sure it will go over swimmingly, but this is why I have a 'decoration' suitcase so he technically won't even see it until I unpack it or at least until I read this to him for suggestion purposes. Word on the Disney streets is that Halloween is celebrated at the cabins in the same way that Christmas is and that both cabins and RV's go all out. Just the thought of decorated cabins and rvs, movies under the stars, s'more cookouts (with a smattering of swimming and horseback riding) has me counting down the days till we go (74 days, but who's counting) and it takes everything in me to stop the packing process now (who am I kidding?! I already have a section in the closet being filled) #teamnoselfrestraint.

If you all want to see how far people can go with their obession at the campgrounds, check out some of decorations that people do HERE. Even if you are not staying at the campgrounds or on Disney property, I highly suggest checking out some of the activities that are taking place, park the car and make a night of it. Plus, the littles can do horseback riding for $8 and I think its the best kept inexpensive experience on property (IMO).

EV went through a REALLY big Spirit Riding Free stage (she still can't sleep without her 'neigh' night light). So although it took some finagling, she ended up lopving it once on the horse.

It should come to no surprise that I always buy extra of things when Halloween items are released at the Bullseye Playground, most of which I forget about until I go rifling through a box and typically go "oh, look! I didn't know we had these...perfect" or something of the like (there is normally a squeal involved too). So imagine my surprise when I was cleaning out a drawer in our bar area and came across these...

Why they were in our bar area in a drawer, I have no idea, but I was certainly glad to come across them and now they are in our decorating suitcase that we take with us for celebrations. Honestly, I am excited to decorate, but Sean and I (well mostly Sean insisted) that we try to be reasonable with our decorations as we will still have to take them down and pack them up and we do not want to do anything time consuming that takes away from the actually enjoying of our time there. I reluctantly agreed, but we already know I have no Halloween chill. Also as I write this he is trying to find a way to decorate our golfcart, so I am not sure he is following his own protocol.

I bought THESE purple lights since there was 75 feet of them and my plan is to wrap them around our porch and then I bought THESE Nightmare Before Christmas masks. Unfortunately as I am writing this, they are already sold out, but I would turn your notifications on. I have no idea how I plan to decorate with them, but I thought they would be easy since they are just masks and would look really cute either on the inside windows or on the cupboards with command strips. They are every bit as amazing in person as they are online. I will probably get a few extra cute things with the Bullseye area in Target starts releasing their things because I have no restraint and try to call it a day (operative word being try). We also have a lightup plug-in plastic pumpkin that is supposed to be darth vader, so obviously that is coming with us also.

I also promised myself that I was going to at the very least show some restraint when it came to EV's outfits this year since she is pretty much the same size as last and then TaylorJoelle released their Halloween launch and all that self-talk went flying out the window. I mean hulllooooo....Hamilton dresses...nuf said.

This is what no chill looks like in case you were curious.....

True story: my MIL plans to be Agatha from WandaVision for actual Halloween day (IYKYK...and if you don't, here is a reference below) so of course I had to buy the kiddos the Vision and Scarlett Witch outfit (above). Sean being the geek that he is was kind of opposed to a brother and sister doing this, but the damage is already done and I am not sorry about it one bit. I mean check out those adorable track suit shorts....done and done.

Unrelated, I bought THIS Jack Skellington inspired shirt (also see above) for the Commodore and then Target came out with THESE dresses w/hood (the pictures do not even do them justice as the quality is amazing for the price) for both EV and myself (again Girls sizes only). I couldn't resist since obviously there will now be a family picture happening. FYI, I have no problem wearing this in public either...it is that cute!

If you are wondering, the 'character' shirts that TaylorJoelle does for little boys are 100% worth the price. It is hard to tell in the picture but all the pieces are sewn on separately so it is not a printed screen shirt, but actually looks like a costume shirt complete with lapel. Little details like that, make them so special and perfect for any person that has difficulty either finding everyday type costumes for boys or at least ones that can transition in the parks without looking costume-y. I have struggled with this a lot especially since if EV dresses up, he wants to as well. I cannot support this small business mama enough, plus she is beyond sweet which makes supporting her and having no impulse control with her releases that much easier.

The Jack Skellington is part of the pre-order so they do not get shipped until August, so unfortunately I cannot show you that one up close, but I did purchase the Belle village inspired dress (EV loves her most of all as she also has the doll of her and will choose village Belle over ballgown Belle any day of the week) as well as the Beast shirt. I loved our Capture Your Moment at Animal Kingdom and I am hoping to snag another one at Magic Kingdom for the weekend we are in Disney for Halloween. I thought it would be fun to do a relaxed Beauty and the Beast photoshoot. I say relaxed because there is no way I am going to convince Sean to traipse around the park in a costume and honestly it is too hot for the Commodore so I opted for something casual and fun (of course this is reliant on my snagging a time at all). Once again, Sean thought doing the love interest thing was a little weird with EV as Belle, but they are darn cute, so I am ignoring him....if you share his opinion, I am ignoring you too. Both the Belle and the Beast were from TaylorJoelle and THIS Gaston shirt for Sean was from Amazon. It is actually really good quality (appears to be Disney licensed if that is important to you) and it is something that Sean will have no problem walking around the parks in, so I do not have to worry about him side-eyeing me all day with no beer in him since Magic Kingdom for the most part is a dry park (alcohol only in sit down restaurants). It is unfortunate that the Mrs. Potts dress that EV is wearing is officially too small (I ordered her a Medium off of Ebay, but it is HUGE so I am saving it...probably till she is 15), but I will be bringing mine to roundout the Beauty and the Beast theme.

Again, the lapel of Commodores shirt is not an iron-on and is an actual lapel making it that much nicer.

Currently, all of my Halloween costumes are in a vaccum-sealed bag under the bed or else I would have shown you mine with theirs, so just enjoy a picture of EV and I from last year instead.

I always buy a new pair of Disney jammies for the kids to celebrate momentous occassions when we go to Disney and of course Halloween at the cabins is no different. I loved THIS and THIS pair that I got from ShopDisney last year so when I saw that Amazon had them for only $15, I got them again in their sizes.

I mean in the grand scheme of things, can anyone have too many Halloween jammies...don't answer that! :)

Obviously this is nowhere near where anything will end, but I think it is a good start....considering it is July...but if people can celebrate Christmas in July (which I am pondering doing as well...don't tell Sean) I figure this should not be considered any less weird.