Laughter as Mom and Dad Dress Up As Famous Dead Parents for Halloween

Choosing your Halloween costume is an established tradition in spooky season, aside from watching scary movies and carving pumpkins.

History.com explains Halloween has its roots in an ancient Celtic festival, Samhain, which has grown to become a $6 billion annual celebration, the second-largest holiday after Christmas.

Borrowing from European traditions, in the latter half of the 19th century, "Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition," the site added.

Whether you verge on the cosplay side of things, want to bring your favorite Disney or T.V. character to life, or enjoy dressing up as a raunchy devil, the options are endless.

Couples or families, particularly those with kids, often use their imaginations to create themed outfits and that's exactly what Garrett Byrum, and his wife, Ashley, did when picking their costumes for October 31.

Garrett, from Texas, shared a snap of three of their best looks to Reddit's Pics forum, captioned: "Had a costume theme for my sons first three years."

The theme is dead parents, as Garrett and Ashley first dressed as Thomas and Martha Wayne, the parents of Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, who were murdered.

Their son, Benji, just 6-months-old at the time, was dressed as the brooding hero. The parents set the scene by lying on the floor, one with a bullet hole to the chest, the other to the head.

Garret told Newsweek where the inspiration came from, saying: "I was really into Batman at the time and wanted our six month old's first Halloween outfit to be the caped crusader.

"My wife wasn't totally against it but preferred dressing up in something vintage. I suggested we do Martha and Thomas in vintage clothes and she agreed and then blew my mind when she suggested that it would be funny if we were his dead parents.

"I, of course, was fully on board and so we ordered the costume for him and got our outfits together."

He claimed Benji was well behaved for the photo shoot, which took place in 2015, and they had a positive reaction to the photo online. The following year they were inspired by the Star Wars franchise, dressing Benji as Luke Skywalker.

Sticking with their overall theme the pair dressed themselves as skeletons, referencing Skywalker finding the charred remains of his foster parents, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, seen in A New Hope as charred skeletons.

Garrett said: "We borrowed the skeleton costumes from some friends and my wife put together the Luke outfit while I made a custom light saber out of cardboard and duct tape.

"Didn't get much attention but our families and friends thought it was great so I of course wanted to keep going the next year."

In 2017 they went for Harry Potter and styled themselves as the ghosts of Lily and James.

While they went for a traditional depiction of a ghost, draped in a bed sheet, fans of the wizarding world know Potter's parents appear and speak to their son at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, in a ghost-like apparition, as they emanate from the tip of Voldermort's wand.

"Not sure who thought of putting the glasses over the classic ghost costume but we both thought it was hilarious and kind of helped make the joke a bit more obvious," Garrett joked.

Over the years they've experimented with becoming The Flying Graysons, the parents of Batman's sidekick Robin, with costumes of "classic trapeze performers with X's over their eyes."

The Byrums, who later welcomed son Elliot, now 3, have yet to decide what they'll wear for Halloween this year although they've deviated from the dead parents theme on a few occasions.

Garrett continued: "Halloween is absolutely our favorite holiday for all of our family including our youngest Elliot.

"Benji normally picks his outfits out, including last year when he picked out a full theme of spooky Mario with him as King Boo, me as Luigi from Luigi's Mansion, Elliot as Toad, and Ashley as Princess Peach.

"Other years we've been classic carnival characters and The Princess Bride (with Elliot being a rodent of unusual size of course). Unfortunately we still aren't quite sure what we are going to do this year but the kids still want to do Mario theme," Garrett added.

The Reddit post has amassed more than 62,000 upvotes since being shared on October 19, as people suggested their own costume ideas.

BleepBlorpTheFirst advised: "Next year, get him a Bambi costume, and then dress up as wall-mounted deer heads."

Very-polite-frog thought: "Next up could be lions in the clouds looking down at Simba."

JoshSidekick pointed out: "I like how there's also a state of decay. Corpse to skeleton to ghost."