A local mom dressed her kids as movie and TV characters every day for the entire month of October
"People ask me all the time, 'How do you do this?'" Meegan Bibel said. "I’m honest. If you do not clean your house for the entire month of October and you’re basically eating frozen meals all month, you too can do this."
Meegan Bibel loves crafting, movies, and Halloween.
So as October approached, the 38-year-old mother of two from Salem, N.H. had the idea to dress up her children as characters from the horror film “It” — 2-year-old Rowan as Pennywise and 7-month-old Wyatt as Georgie. Bibel posted a picture to social media on Oct. 1.
“I thought I would just do one photo, post it on Instagram and Facebook, to kick off the month of Halloween,” she said. “On Oct. 2, I said, ‘I think I can do another.'”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoaNmmgHsJw/?taken-by=meeganbibel
Bibel challenged herself to post a different photo every day in October, though she wrote a comment alongside the first photo saying she’d probably quit after five days. Her husband, fellow movie fan Malachi Bibel who works as a local grip on films, said, ‘You’re crazy,’ when she told him her mission, she said with a laugh. But the more photos she took, the more determined she became to meet her goal.
“It’s a marriage of my love of movies and Halloween, and our love of dressing up,” Bibel said. “We have so much dress-up stuff at our house anyway, and I just thought it was a cute idea. You don’t see kids often dressed as these characters. So I liked that spin on it.”
Bibel’s husband helped out when he could, even manning the fog machine for the “Friday the 13th” photo shoot on day 26. Bibel said she didn’t work off of a list and often determined the day’s characters on the fly.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpaiAqjnPpk/?taken-by=meeganbibel
“For the most part, they were movies I love and iconic characters,” Bibel said. “It was also based on what I had. I’m a stay-at-home mom so I’m not spending a ton on these projects. It’s what I can find in my basement and closets.”
Besides “It” on day one and “Friday the 13th” on day 26, featured horror films included “Creature from the Black Lagoon” on day six and day 19 and “Carrie” on day 21. Bibel dressed up her kids as characters from children’s movies like “Peter Pan” (day 22), “101 Dalmatians” (day four), and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (day 17), and comedies such as “Risky Business” (day 24), “Beetlejuice” (day 25), and “Napoleon Dynamite” (day 16). Bibel also paid homage to TV shows like “Twin Peaks” (day two) and “Game of Thrones” (day 10), and even threw in an animated TV special: On day five, bald-headed Wyatt channeled Charlie Brown from 1966’s “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BokYDEgnhxh/?taken-by=meeganbibel
Working with such young subjects had its challenges.
“These photo shoots were five minutes or less,” Bibel said. “I’m not a professional. I’m using my iPhone, just shouting out really basic commands to Rowan like, ‘Look up at me. Look surprised. Look angry.’ She can handle those types of commands. We would hit five minutes, tops, and she’d be done, she’d be bored. She’s moving around. Wyatt, forget it. You get what you get with a 7-month-old. I worked very quickly.”
She said her daughter loves dressing up, so she didn’t mind the photo shoots — even if she had no idea what character she was dressed as. Bibel said she rewarded her after each shoot with a popsicle or a doughnut.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpiOpuoHLGU/?taken-by=meeganbibel
“I tried not to do total macabre throughout the whole month, because it was [done with] kids,” Bibel said. “When I did do anything involving blood, I was very careful not to call it blood in front of her. We didn’t use the word ‘kill’ or ‘death.’ I told her she looked spooky.”
The “blood” was actually a mixture of Hershey’s syrup and strawberry syrup.
Bibel said she’s had fun, but she’ll be relieved when the project is over.
“People ask me all the time, ‘How do you do this?'” she said. “I’m honest. If you do not clean your house for the entire month of October and you’re basically eating frozen meals all month, you too can do this.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Boh5bEln1ln/?taken-by=meeganbibel
Bibel said she’s been amazed at the reaction from family, friends, and strangers.
“I thought this was just going to be a quirky little geeky thing that my close friends and immediate family would enjoy and maybe I wouldn’t even go the whole month,” Bibel said. “People I haven’t talked to in 20 years are reaching out, saying they look forward to it.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpX4v3SHQ5q/?taken-by=meeganbibel
What will be the final installment of the series for Halloween day? On Oct. 30, Bibel said she hadn’t a clue.
“Just to give you an example of how unprepared I have been throughout the whole month, I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow,” Bibel said. “Tomorrow’s Halloween.”
She said she told her daughter she can dress up as whatever she wants for Halloween, that she doesn’t have to pick any of the costumes from the photo shoots.
As of Tuesday, Rowan wanted to be a lion, Bibel said.
Will that mean a “Wizard of Oz” finale?
“That seems too obvious,” Bibel said.
But Bibel said she won’t rule out “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
You can see all of Bibel’s photos here.
