I now know why Princes Leia was such a bitch in Star Wars. It was the hair. I spent all day yesterday wearing that ridiculous bun hairstyle in a show of solidarity with my almost five-year old daughter (that almost is very important to her), and good god, but it hurt like hell. Yes, her costume came with a wig, but I knew it would wind up as a hairball at the bottom of the stroller by the end of the day, so I went old-school and bobby-pinned the buns to her head.
Let’s begin at the beginning. While looking through all of the costume catalogues that start arriving in mid-July, my daughter found the Star Wars page. She had already leafed past the requisite Disney Princess costumes when she spied Leia. My daughter immediately went into raptures that there was a princess out there who she didn’t know about! “This, she declared, “is what I am going to be for trick-or-treating.” But then, looking further on the page, she spied the Ewok costume and determined that this must be Leia’s pet, and therefore, the perfect costume for her two-year old brother. Poor kid, three years running and he hasn’t picked his own costume yet. Maybe next year.
I am part of the Star Wars generation. My first memory of ever being in a movie theater was hiding my eyes in terror when Vadar is revealed in Cloud City. I remember trying to dress as Leia as a child and crying because my sister was using black thread on my white costume. Once VCR’s became the norm in homes, my dad would pop in one of the three original movies the way other dads put on ESPN. (But he could never remember what order they should be watched in, so I had to put stickers with little numbers on them to help him out). I couldn’t even tell you if the movies or good or bad. They are so much part of my life that I have no ability to look at them objectively. I even slept out for tickets to Episode 1 and saw it twice within 24 hours on opening day. And while that movie and the other two following it were terrible, the actual experience of sleeping out was awesome. My now husband even joined in the all-night fun (minds out of the gutter, people) in an attempt to woo me. We watched light-saber fights and the original three movies off using pirated electricity from the movie theater. They kind theater managers even gave out bags of popcorn and water come morning.
So when my daughter decided to join in the fun, I knew I had to find a costume as well. Yeah, that didn’t work so well. For obvious reasons, Leia’s slave girl costume was out of the question. Queen Amidala’s costume was a bit ornate and the Padme costume was just bizarre. My husband has a Star Wars t-shirt and deemed that sufficient for his costume, but I was at a loss. So when the time came for the first of many Halloween outings, I decided to just go for the buns. They hurt. They are a bitch to do properly, and when you have a child with chin-length hair, almost impossible to do at all. She would up with little knobs on the top of her head, and I, well, I wound up with the mother of all headaches.
Anyway, so while neither child has ever seen a Star Wars movie and probably won’t for several years, I’m glad they are now part of the Rebel Alliance. Now, if only I could get my daughter to say, “May the Force be with You” instead of trick-or-treat, all will be right with the world.
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