There’s nothing like having to push past a white Flo Rida and a Barrel-O’-Monkeys making out in front of your door at 2 a.m. If there is, I challenge you to e-mail me (my contact info is at the bottom). But it’s all in good fun, especially when the most pressing thought on your mind is how all the tics and tacs fell off your lovingly created tic-tac-toe board costume.

Saturday was Halloween, and 2009 saw plenty of new and old trends in the costume department.

Halloween originates in an old Celtic celebration called Samhain. The night before Samhain, when spirits, demons and fairies were said to walk the earth, the Celts wore animal skins and performed animal sacrifices around bonfires. The wearing of skins, as well as the blackening of their faces, served to honor their ancestors while also confusing any malevolent spirits. Some — both men and women — would cross-dress; others would go from door to door, carrying lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips, and perform various antics in return for food and drink. Later, the Christians took out the pagan elements of the holiday, changing Samhain to All Saints Day, and the night before, All Hallows’ Eve, became Halloween.

Now, in the New World, the saints have faded out of most celebrations. We use pumpkins instead of turnips and animal sacrifices are at a historic low. The traditional wearing of a costume is still going strong, however. For people over 13 who cannot realistically go trick-or-treating anymore — whose trick-or-treating, in fact, consists of the nightly search for dancing, drinks or a date — costumes are the part of the holiday that ties everyone together.

Although enthusiasm ran as high this year as ever, sales of premade costumes were low. Experts at the National Retail Federation predicted that total spending on costumes would fall to $4.75 billion this year, about $1 billion less than in 2008, and a survey predicted that costume expenditure would be about $20 for the average American — lower than previous years with the economy still low.

These predictions seem to have been confirmed.

“It’s funny,” says Chris Wilber, a manager at Michael’s Craft Store in Atlanta. “This year has been different because we’ve seen more homemade costumes this year than usual. People are just being so creative and using their money more wisely.”

Anslee Mele, the assistant manager at Psycho Sisters in Little 5 Points agrees: “This year it seemed like people were a little bit more creative, maybe because our package costumes cost a little bit more.”

For College sophomore Jonah Chilton, creativity is a must. “[A good costume] has to be original; you have to make it yourself,” Chilton says. Chilton, who spent Halloween as a Haisidic Jew, complete with construction-paper peyos and a drawn-on beard, takes a dim view of store-bought costumes. “I don’t do that,” he says.

Noah Levy, a tall, slender freshman in the College, dressed as Ron Weasley of the Harry Potter franchise in a costume that he assembled from various robes and props from around L5P, as well as two red-and-gold tube socks that he sewed together to make a scarf.

“A good costume isn’t just premade or predone. It has to be customized and has to be immediately recognizable,” Levy says. “This year’s costume has been my favorite. ... Past costumes have been more generic, but this one fits my appearance.”

Richard Prior of the music department resorted to creativity when his son’s costume proved hard to find.

“You can be sure that the first thing I did when [my son] Anderson said he wanted to be an airplane was go online, but as you can imagine, airplane costumes are in very short supply or nonexistant. I, in fact, made the costume. It was a cunning combination of a cardboard box and various attachments with wings ... [Anderson] basically lived in it all last night and into the next morning,” said Prior the day after Halloween.

Creativity was certainly a theme of the year. Wilber fondly recalled one woman who brought a great deal of plastic fruit and went as a fruit bowl. Not everyone had the time or energy for an original creation, however.

For some, the store-bought costume is the best option.

“People love the store-bought ones too. They come in and they’re like, ‘I wanna be an Indian!’ ... It’s just easy,” Mele says.

“Most of the costumes [on Halloween] were store-bought,” Prior says, reflecting on the costumes he’d seen the night before.

Chineca Brown, a manager at the Briarcliff Village Party City, said that most of the costumes the store carried this year were sold out by Halloween night, with most of shopping taking place in a packed store throughout Saturday.

“Nothing was really more popular than anything else,” Brown said. “For little kids, Transformers and superheros went pretty quickly.”

The costumes at Emory spanned far and wide this year. Groups dressed as Wizard of Oz characters and the seven deadly sins. College senior Ashley Hanson named a Kanye West-Taylor Swift pair and a Russian mail-order bride (complete with duffle bag) as her favorites of the night. For Prior, there was one especially impressive Iron Man. College senior Walt Ecton named a group of policemen as his favorite collective costume.

“They were all really into [their costumes] and really active,” Ecton says. “It was great.”

“There’s a craze every year,” Mele says. “It depends on what movie is out at the time or what’s popular. This year it’s Lady Gaga. ... People bought wigs, tight leggings and anything odd and weird.”

Beyond Lady Gaga there was also the typical range of Harry Potter costumes and a surge in Michael Jackson look-alikes, along with some Kate Gosselins and Nadya Sulemans.

Tim Burton is always a good source of inspiration on Halloween, and in honor of his upcoming film, College senior Ashley Hanson chose to dress as Alice in Wonderland. Though she said she had made costumes in the past, this year she decided to take the faster alternative.

“I think I just saw the costume online and I liked it, and I didn’t have the sewing machine I needed to make something. I mean, I know how to sew, but, come on. Plus, I’m in the middle of all this work; I’m not going to spend all my nights sewing a costume,” Hanson says.

She ordered her Alice in Wonderland costume off the Internet, stopping by Michael’s to get her signature hairbow.

However a costume is constructed, the fact remains that most people out and about on Halloween night are dressed up. In this century, not too many people are concerned with tricking the spirit world, but people still love to dress up.

“I feel that in high school there was less participation; everyone thought they were too grown up, so here it was like a way to celebrate freedom,” Levy says.

But there’s one craze that never goes away. “I mean, there’s a trend every year for bunny rabbits and Playboy bunnies and pirate and sailor girls,” Mele says with a sardonic note in her voice.

Chilton also has a wry tone we he comments on the less modest costumes. “Girls take a minimalist approach when it comes to costumes,” Chilton says. “They try to wear as little as possible. They get something that covers [their] boobs and then put on some ears.”

The less modest costume is a staple of the teenage and older peoples’ Halloweens, as seen in mortifying moments from “Bridget Jones’s Diary” to “Mean Girls.” This year saw many familiar and sexy sheep, cats, bunnies and Little Bo Peeps.

Despite the cold and the drizzle, plenty of scantily clad girls in heels and with hair curled made their way along Ridgewood Drive and filed in and out of Virginia Highlands bars. Although it causes raised eyebrows from some, on a night where everything is supposed to be turned upside down — and has been so for more than 2,000 years — is this really so wrong?

“It’s definitely a college thing,” Ecton says. “There’s something really exciting about being able to portray yourself in a way that wouldn’t be socially acceptable at any other time. As long as [these girls] are not going around neighborhoods with children it’s fine.”

Levy pointed out that this is a once-a-year chance to dress however one wants, and at this point the sheer number of girls who “dress down” have made it acceptable.

“People can dress however they want whenever they want, and I think the fact that a lot of people do it makes it acceptable ... No one is entitled to criticize,” Levy says.

College senior Raphael Simel cannot agree. This year, in social protest, he went out as a sexy Pocahontas, featuring a generously-hemmed tube dress, a red feather, tribal tattoos and Chuck Taylor high tops.

The costume was part of a collaboration with two of Simel’s friends from other schools who dressed as a sexy Little Red Riding Hood and a sexy Jasmine from “Aladdin.”

In keeping with the attitude of College Humor’s “Girls’s Costume Warehouse,” a video which spoofs skimpy costumes, showcasing garb for a “sexy Jesus” and a “sexy ketchup bottle,” Simel thinks that costumes have gone too far.

“Especially over the past few years, Halloween is turning into girls having the chance to show off their bodies or whatever else, and it’s kind of over the top. I think it’s gotten ridiculous. You just say like, ‘sexy blank’ and then choose whatever you want. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m a bee! I’m a slutty bee!’ So I wanted to be a slutty Disney character and take it over the top,” Simel says.

As to the female turnout this year, “you look on Facebook though, and it’s still ridiculous. It’s like, put some clothes on,” Simel says.

Despite a positive response to the costume (he reported comments on his nice legs), he is not eager to repeat the experience.

“It was cold and I was uncomfortable and I got hit on. My ass got grabbed! Yeah, I didn’t like it,” Simel says.

Love them or hate them, there is no end in sight for the less modest costume. Changes seem to stem simply from the news. Last year’s flood of Sarah Palins was replaced this year by troops of Michael Jacksons.

The National Retail Federation’s study of popular Halloween costumes revealed that nurse fell from fifth most popular adult costume out of the top 10 completely (the spot is now held by “Wench/Tart/Vixen”). Experts speculated that it was due to exasperation with the ongoing health-care debate.

As backward as some of our ancestors’ traditions seem to us now, they did get something right. We need a day — just one — every year when we dress up and forget ourselves. So next year, spend time on your costume. Whether you’re looking for laughs with a Barrel-O’-Monkeys or, like me, are just trying to make it through the night with your tic-tac-toe costume intact, the costume is the reason for season.

— Contact Frances Allitt.