Our Totally Epic “The Shining” Family Halloween Costumes

Sometime last year, it suddenly occurred to me my family is THE PERFECT CONFIGURATION to dress up as all the characters from The Shining. My husband could be Jack Nicholson. I could be Shelley Duvall. My son could be the little boy, and my twins could be… the creepy twins. I knew at that moment that some TOTALLY EPIC family Halloween costumes were in our future.

But before we get to pictures and details, I feel like this post needs a disclaimer: We aren’t actually that into Halloween.

My husband and I have NEVER dressed up for Halloween as a couple. Our kids dress up and go trick-or-treating, but all the costumes were basically selections from their dress up bin. “Come here, Emma. Do you want to squeeze into this old princess dress, or wear your brother’s giant astronaut costume?” Happy Halloween.

I don’t know how to sew. I’m not a crafty, DIY kind of gal. I rarely rock a glue gun, and I have a strict “no glitter” policy in my home. On the other hand, I have several close friends that get super amped every year as Halloween approaches. They pull together pieces from thrift stores, craft stores, garage sales, and probably the moon or some alternate universe for their epic family Halloween costumes. They sew and glue and even SODER their creations in preparation for the thrill dressing up together. We have never done this. It’s not our jam.

Our jam is all things FUNNY. If there is an opportunity to make ourselves laugh, we are on it like a bonnet. Our kids might laugh, but at this point, they are too young to really GET how FUNNY my husband and I are. If our friends laugh, too, that’s cool, but mostly, Nathan and I just like to amuse ourselves.

Which brings us to “The Shining.” I mean, the whole idea was just SO FUNNY. I couldn’t get over how perfect and hilarious it would be with my kids and us and the costumes and the AXE. I just couldn’t deal.

So I joined my awesome, crafty, creative girlfriends, and for the first time in my adult life, I pulled together some TOTALLY EPIC family Halloween costumes inspired by The Shining. (Shout out to Michelle Sybert of Brave & Bright Photography for capturing the horror & hilarity.)

You guys. Get ready to die.

I just can’t handle it. I really hope my kids look back at this and appreciate how hilarious their parents are, but I don’t really care if they don’t.

Most of Nathan’s costume was stuff we had. He’s wearing a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt from his closet. The jacket was a little more difficult, so I had to shop around for that. I ended up finding it at Old Navy, but you can find a similar one on Amazon. We borrowed the axe from a friend, as well, but they have some awesome foam axes available online.

Will’s costume for Danny from The Shining was largely made up of things we owned. He already had corduroy pants and a plaid shirt, but I needed to figure out that iconic sweater. I bought a blue v-neck sweater that worked pretty well, then used felt to make the patches for the sweater. I’ll make a tutorial for the sweater soon, but you can get the components from Amazon.

Can we talk about how into it Katie is? (She’s on the left.) She took direction like a pro. Meanwhile, Emma was asking all the questions. “Why am I serious? What is a serious face? I don’t know how to do that. Can I play now? I don’t like being still. What are you doing?” Obviously, one is a born actress, and the other, born to question authority.

As for what they are wearing, I basically got all the components for the girls’ Shining Twins Costumes from Amazon. This costume was the easiest by far. You can check all the pieces out here.

For my own costume, I found the turtleneck at an online thrift store, the plaid shirt at Target, and borrowed the UGG boots and bat from friends. I couldn’t find an overall dress that would work, so I bought a short corduroy dress and used this Youtube Tutorial to make the top into an overall top. (If you don’t want to run around town, you can buy a lot of this on Amazon, as well.)

My in-laws hallway will never look the same to me again. I’m completely creeped out. My kids are terrifying.

All my high school theater training culminated in this one performance. I’ll see you guys at the Oscars.

Also, my husband is the funniest, most terrifying person ever. I couldn’t look at him while this picture was taken. I had to turn away for fear of busting up or screaming.