These Hils have eyes.
Carroll Gardens parents used the neighborhood’s Halloween parade on Sunday to make political statements by dressing their tots up as miniature versions of Hillary Clinton and especially Donald Trump, according to parade-goers who say the pint-sized presidential candidates generally reflected the neighborhood’s liberal bent but were done in good fun.
“What I noticed was more anti-Trump costumes,” said Elisa Cheslak, who bucked the trend by dressing as Peter Pan with her 1-year-old daughter Sylvia and husband Christian clad respectively as Tinkerbell and Captain Hook. “Considering the election is just about a week away, it’s very timely and good for a laugh.”
One dad took the commentary to a new level by dousing his 2-year-old son in fake-blood to make him a “zombie apocalyptic Donald Trump” — lest other attendees at the annual Carroll Park event mistake his family for fans of the alleged perv.
“We were going to dress him up as Donald but all of the groping things came out and we decided it might not be such a good idea,” said Jason Gallacher, who buttoned a tiny suit jacket and bloody “Make America great again” sign on his youngster Jake. “We honestly just wanted to make it very clear where we stood politically and we thought it’d be more tongue-in-cheek to do something more obscure than just dressing him up in a suit.”
The costume generated a lot of laughs — but not everyone was in on the joke, Gallacher reports.
“A lot of people took pictures, and a lot of people commented that it was one of the best costumes they’d seen,” he said. “I got a few weird looks from people that may have been Trump supporters.”
Other families opted for more apolitical themes, including full clans dressed as Star Wars characters and pirates, but one attendee said it still seemed like some adults were even more excited about the costumed capering than their kids.
“It’s always nice to see the kids enjoying it and the parents enjoying it even more sometimes,” said Katie Ivish, who came with husband Scott Chinn and their 2-year-old Desmond as Muppet trio Mahna Mahna and the Snowths.
