Family Halloween Costume Ideas Everyone Will Agree On

Family costumes sound adorable until you are standing in the kitchen at 9pm in mid October trying to convince four people with four completely different personalities to agree on a theme. Somebody wants to be scary. Somebody wants to be a specific animal and will not be moved. Somebody, and I am not naming names but he is my husband, says he is fine with anything and then vetoes everything.

What finally worked for us was giving up on matching and going for a category instead. A category means everybody gets to pick their own thing inside it, which means everyone feels like they chose. Below are the themes that have actually gotten a yes in my house, plus notes on what each one costs, whether it survives a cold night, and how it holds up when someone has to get in and out of a car seat nine times.

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1. Breakfast

This is the one that finally got unanimous approval. One person is a stack of pancakes, one is a fried egg, one is a slice of bacon, one is a coffee cup. It is funny, nobody is scary, and the pieces are all soft.

Most of these are a felt shape safety pinned or glued to a plain colored sweatshirt. Pancakes are three tan felt circles and a yellow square for butter. Fried egg is a big white oval with a yellow circle. Bacon is red and white wavy strips. Total for the family, around thirty five dollars in felt and sweatshirts if you own the sweatshirts. A stack of craft felt sheets runs about eight dollars and does the whole family.

Cold night: outstanding, since everything is over a sweatshirt and you can layer under it. Car seat: flat felt pieces are the only structural costume that does not fight a harness. This is the top pick if you are driving between neighborhoods.

2. Under the Sea

One jellyfish, which is a clear umbrella with ribbons hanging from it. One person in a fishing vest and a bucket hat. Kids as fish, meaning a felt fin taped to a blue or orange hoodie. A crab is a red hoodie with pipe cleaner claws.

Honest warning about the jellyfish. It looks incredible and it is genuinely miserable to walk with. The ribbons catch on everything and you cannot hold a kid’s hand while holding an umbrella. Assign it to whoever is staying at the door handing out candy.

3. The Garden

A gardener with a straw hat and gloves, kids as flowers with a felt petal collar around the face, someone as a bee with antennae, and a baby as a little seedling in a green onesie. It is soft, warm, and photographs well in fall light.

The petal collar is the only real project here and it is maybe twenty minutes with no sew fabric glue. Cut petals, glue them to a fabric neckband, done. Cost is around twenty dollars total. Cold: good, everything layers. Car seat: the petal collar has to come off to buckle, so make it something that unties rather than pulls over the head.

4. Campers and a Cryptid

Everyone wears actual outdoor gear, meaning flannels, puffy vests, beanies, and headlamps, and one person is a large friendly woodland cryptid in a brown fur coat. It is barely a costume, which is the appeal.

This is the warmest option on the list by a mile because it is literally just warm clothes. If your Halloween is looking like it will be in the thirties, this is the answer. Cost is close to nothing if you camp at all. Headlamps double as the safety lighting, which I appreciate.

5. A Decade

Pick the seventies or the eighties and let everybody interpret it. Corduroy, denim on denim, headbands, tracksuits, big glasses. This is the theme that works best when you have a tween who has recently decided that coordinated family anything is humiliating, because they can style themselves out of it and still technically participate.

Cost is whatever thrifting costs, usually under forty dollars for four people. It is warm, it survives everything, and the clothes get worn again.

6. The Bakery

One baker in an apron and chef hat, kids as cupcakes or donuts, one person as a rolling pin, which is genuinely funny and takes about four minutes to assemble. Cupcake is a tutu with a colored beanie for frosting on top. Donut is a felt ring.

Tutus are cold. That is the honest note. If you go this route, put fleece leggings underneath and do not let anyone convince you otherwise at 5pm when it seems fine out.

7. Weather

A sun, a cloud with cotton batting glued on, a rainbow, a small lightning bolt. This year I am doing a cloud and letting the bump be the cloud, which is honestly the easiest maternity costume I have ever come up with. My whole approach right now is anything that involves a soft waistband and no zipper.

How We Actually Pick, and the Negotiation That Works

• Two weeks out: everyone names two themes. Write all of them on paper.
• Cross off anything requiring a purchase over twenty five dollars per person. This kills about half the list and nobody argues with math.
• Everyone gets one veto, no explanation required. This is the step that ended the fighting in my house.
• Whatever is left, the youngest picks. They care the most and they are the hardest to reason with.
• One week out: lay every piece out on a bed and check that each person can sit, walk, and reach a doorbell in it.

What to Buy vs What You Already Own

• Already own: plain sweatshirts, leggings, flannels, beanies, aprons, safety pins.
• Worth buying: a set of plain colored sweatshirts in the theme colors. They become the base layer for years of costumes and are just clothes the rest of the time.
• Worth buying: antennae headbands and similar simple headpieces. They read instantly in photos and cost almost nothing.
• Skip: anything requiring cardboard. Cardboard costumes cannot sit down, cannot get in a car, and cannot go through a door sideways.

What I Would Skip

Forcing a teenager to participate. One year I pushed it and the pictures show exactly one person having a bad time, and it is the only thing I see when I look at them now. Let them opt into a hat and call it a win.

Also skip any theme where one family member gets the boring role. Somebody always ends up as the plain background character and they know it. If a theme has a dud role, pick a different theme.

Pick the One Nobody Hates

Family costumes are not really about the photo. They are about the twenty minutes in the kitchen where everybody is getting dressed and laughing at how ridiculous the rolling pin looks. Pick the theme that gets you the most of that.

xo, Pam