The Buddy Skeleton

As many of you know, Halloween is my favorite holiday. My favoritism is based less on the themes of creepiness and ghoulish things, but probably more so on the fact that dressing up in costume and pretending to be something else is such a fun thing to do. Costumes these days have swayed from their original intent of being something scary (to ward off demons). Nowadays, people are dressing as anything and everything under the sun, from astronauts to cupcakes, to abstract axioms. This year I'm going to be an angel of darkness - a scary character, to keep in tradition with warding off evil demons, which is a fabulous idea, especially in this day and age.

Of all the creepy characters associated with Halloween, I prefer skeletons. As the base infrastructure of our physical selves, they're just interesting. I love the Mexican decor for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is synonymous with our Halloween, during which calaveras (skulls) are decorated and adorned in fun ways. Dia de los Muertos is less a dress up occasion than it is a moment to remember those close to us who have died. November 1st, on the Catholic calendar, is listed as All Souls Day, also synonymous with Dia de los Muertos. Anyway, I think it's a grand idea to honor the lives of those who lived before us.

This Halloween, my decorations shall be fairly frugal. I decided a life sized skeleton was needed, so I made one out of paper. Here he is: the Buddy Skeleton.

I created him out of stiff paper rolled tightly for the limbs, and a paper chain link structure for his spine. I drew his face with black marker. He's hanging in my closet at the moment, waiting for Halloween.