Halloween Memories - Guest Post and Giveaway

Julie Mulhern is taking over Cozy Up With Kathy today. Julie writes the Country Club Murders Mystery series.  Send in the Clowns is the fourth book in the series and was released October 25, 2016.

Halloween Memories

Julie Mulhern 

In researching Send in the Clowns, which is set around Halloween in 1974, I got to go back and look at Halloween costumes from the era.

Do you remember Ben Cooper costumes? Molded plastic with tiny slits, they made seeing and breathing a challenge. But who cared? For one glorious night a child was a princess, or a pirate, or a clown.

I was usually a princess. Yellow hair, golden tiara, pink polyester tunic that covered my clothes. Perfection. Until…

I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri where Halloween can be balmy or frigid. For most of my childhood, weather on the big night was cold. My mother insisted I wear a coat.

“No,” I cried. “No one will see my costume!”

“Wear your coat under your costume.”

Now any child knows this is bulky and uncomfortable. Any girl knows, no matter how young she is, that wearing a coat under your clothes adds the appearance of weight.

“Noooooooooooooooooo!”

“You’re not going if you don’t wear a coat.”

“Elizabeth’s not wearing a coat.” This comment was a tactical error. It inevitably led to…

“If Elizabeth jumped off the Empire State Building, would you jump too?”

“No.” This I uttered with snark worthy of my teen-age self.

It’s funny. Decades later, those arguments are one of my fondest Halloween memories. I loved incorporating them into Send in the Clowns.

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