For a holiday so deeply rooted in spooky origins and themed with all things ghosts, goblins and ghoulishly gory graves, Halloween is pretty fantastic.

As soon as autumn’s chill sets in, families begin to plan costumes and plot trick-or-treat routes as they prepare for that singular, Brigadoon-like day in which craftily-dressed kiddos go gather ample amounts of Snickers bars from perfect strangers.

Massive sugary stockpiles are amassed throughout homes everywhere, gobbled by our little goblins when parents are looking the other way, and likewise snacked on by said parents with appropriately paired wines when kiddos are tucked in bed.

While much has changed in the kiddo-sphere since I was a tot, I’m so happy we still get Halloween.

And I eagerly anticipate it as much today as I did when I was a child with a pile of cardboard boxes, tubes of face paint, trusting parents, and a wild imagination.

But through the years, Halloween somehow became a bit more expensive. Perhaps it’s my wild imagination again, but today’s elaborate, store-bought costumes stand in stark contrast to the days my mother sewed mine.

Friends’ costumes seemed simpler in the early nineties too, often a mixed media of homemade creation and a store-bought mask or cape.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to spy an extravagant getup.

But Halloween prep doesn’t have to come at an extravagant price.

Preparing for a night of trick-or-treating doesn’t have to be All Hallows’ Paycheck.

Gone – or dwindling – may be the days of home-sewn costumes, but many crafting websites and magazines abound to spark ideas to help us add creative flair to any ensemble in a pinch.

This Halloween season, both our little guys declared they wanted to dress as pirates.

My husband and I loved the idea, because the’d be warm and comfortable.

Our boys loved the idea, because they’d get to play with swords.

And so I purchased pirate costumes in two different sizes, albeit hesitantly.

Each year I’ve told myself I’d make their costumes from scratch, as I’d created my own once upon a pre-adult-with-responsibilities time.

But convenience once again eclipsed my theory of creativity, and so I purchased the packaged costumes.

Our oldest loved his outfit. Donned with a snug Henley underneath to keep him warm – so he wouldn’t shiver any timbers – he looked like a marvelous buccaneer.

As for the smaller costume, our younger boy wasn’t having any of it. I couldn’t blame him.

It fit strangely, was much smaller than advertised, and part of the fabric appeared cheaply manufactured and thin. His costume was not cozy at all, certainly not what the falsely advertised image on the box emblazoned.

We would have returned it, except that the pirate hat which accompanied the package looked and fit fabulously. So we kept the hat, ditched the shoddy garb, and realized that necessity now required us to get creative to figure out the rest.

My husband and I’d already purchased a sword separately; we managed to locate bonus eye patches leftover from a pirate-themed party we’d thrown for the kids earlier this summer.

I dug through my son’s clothes and found a cozy, long-sleeved shirt with alternating bands of red and light gray that could pass as pirate stripes.

My mother-in-law had earlier picked up black pirate vests for the boys, so I safety-pinned one over his striped shirt to complete the pirate look, accompanied by matching black pants. Arrgh! We had ourselves a mini-pirate, complete with his older sibling in semi-matching getups.

Once we tested their outfits via a living room Pirate Fashion Show, we moved on to decorations – a part I enjoy almost as much as consuming Reese’s.

Construction paper, glue, scissors and markers spread across the kitchen table in a sea of ghoulish colors – blacks, greens, oranges, purples – and we went to work turning our home interior into a kid-crafted spook venue.

We bopped our heads as tunes like ‘Monster Mash’ and ‘Witch Doctor’ played on our Halloween playlist, getting us into the spooky spirit.

And it was then I remembered that what I love most about Halloween is crafty, not costly.

Preparing for the spooky day which precedes All Saints’ and Souls’ Days is an ideal opportunity to bring out creative sides of kiddos and adults alike.

And so many inspired Halloween crafts, foods and favors are mere phone swipes away so that anyone can let his imagination run wild. And at the end of it all, you get chocolate. It doesn’t get much better than that.

So happy Halloween planning to all, and to all a graveyard smash.

Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang!

— Michelle Cote is the creative director of the Journal Tribune and a nationally-syndicated columnist. She can be contacted at mcote@journaltribune.com.