Tell Us: How Do You Reuse or Recycle Halloween Costumes?

Halloween time is always fun, and if your family is anything like mine, the great costume discussion of 2012 has already begun.

Local businesses like Party City are ready for those must-have new costumes and accessories, and Spirit Halloween has a pop-up stores open in the Target shopping center in Dublin, on Rosewood Drive in Pleasanton and on Arroyo Vista in Livermore.

But new threads for a one-night gig are spendy and--also if you're anything like me--you've got at least a half-dozen costumes hanging around from previous years. Well, now, most of my young relatives have outgrown my children's prior haunting duds, so donating or swapping seems like a great plan.

Here's one annual event, National Costume Swap Day, which gives you the opportunity to turn in your old costumes for a swap ticket good at local businesses in the Bay Area on Oct. 13.

There are a couple of great costumes I hand made with and for my daughter once upon a time that I might have trouble parting with, but clowns, lady pirates, little boy ninjas, Simba from the Lion King circa 1996, and many other great things need new children to bring them back to life again.

So tell me, please, where and how do you trade in, trade up, and share the spookiness?