From the Editor: I'll Show You Mine if You Show Me Yours

I love Halloween. I love the time of year. I love the Santa Ana winds that come along with it. I love the decorations. And I love the costumes, especially.

I like to get crafty, so creating costumes is a treat—and sometimes a trick. In the past few years, I've helped piece together a Tinker Bell dress for a chubby one-year-old, made a Captain Hook pirate jacket overnight for a dramatic 6-year-old, turned a pink puffy bridesmaid dress into a red Queen of Hearts outfit, put a quirky witch's outfit together without sewing a stich and helped a friend pull off a last-minute wicked, gory, sadistic nurse's costume.

For some reason, I've ended up with some pretty silly costumes myself. There was the year I made a big paper mâché ball to use as a Jack in the Box head and went around in a suit with a fast food bag (which actually had candy in it to hand out). I've recycled my fiery orange and red Burning Man wig for costumes. And I inadvertantly started a congo line through San Francisco's Castro District one Halloween while wearing a big, fluffy frog-in-a-tutu costume.

And then there was the Mr. Potato Head costume, complete with extra "pieces" so people could make new faces on me. The only problem was that big brown blobs can be mistaken for other things and more than one person asked if I was Mr. Hanky (you South Park fans can understand why that wasn't a good thing).

As you can see, I really DO like costumes. And I'd like to see YOURS.

Patch has a costume contest going on right now and you can upload photos through Nov. 1. It's kind of cool because the grand prize is $5,000 and all you have to do is post a photo of you or your child in a costume. It can be from this year or from years past. Besides, it's just kind of fun to see everyone's creativity!

So I have a challange for Moorpark. If we get ten photos uploaded (and with a population of more than 34,000 people, that's not many!), I'll post my Mr. Hank... er, Mr. Potato Head costume photo too. Or maybe the Jack costume. Or maybe ... oh, I'll figure it out. Sound good?

Here's the link to Patch's Best Halloween Costume in America contest. All you have to do is upload your photo by clicking on the green "Upload Your Photos and Videos" button and upload your image (but first make sure you’re a registered Patch user—we want to be able to contact you if you win). Wouldn't it be awesome if someone from Moorpark won?