By Brian Argabright
The 830 Times
One Halloween tradition returned this weekend and another may have just begun.
The Del Rio Downtown Association held its annual Monster Mash event Saturday night on South Main Street, but the weekend of Halloween-themed activities kicked off Friday night with the inaugural Monster Mash Parade and Market at the Museum.
Alexandra Falcon Calderon, president of the association, explained that there were some uncertainties regarding the parade considering this year was was the first time it would take place, but she said the attendance, with folks lined up at least three rows deep in some parts of the South Main Street route, and the lineup of more than 25 entries showed her, and the association, that this event should become an annual thing.
She added that she didn’t want the parade to just start and then stop, so the route was put together to help draw people to the Market at the Museum held at the Whitehead Memorial Museum located further south on Main Street.
Those events were just the precursor to the return of a popular Del Rio Halloween tradition – Monster Mash.
Monster Mash, which had been held annually since at least 2009, was shelved last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its anticipated return was greeted with hundreds of visitors who visited vendors, took part in the popular costume contest, or just walked the two blocks to check out everything the event had to offer.
This year’s costume contest drew dozens of entries in each age group, leaving it up to the judges to select the top three entries based on several factors including do-it-yourself appearance or originality, detail, authenticity, presentation and how scary or cute the costume appeared.
Gift cards were presented to each of the winners.
Falcon Calderon said the Monster Mash is traditionally held on the final Saturday of October, meaning the parade could return on the final Friday.
The top three costumes in each age group are as follows. The actual names of each entry were not available.
Age Group 0-5
First – Uncle Fester
Second – Hunter
Third – Sea Monster
Age Group 6-12
First – Vending Machine
Second – Elotero
Third – Greg from Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Age Group 13-Over and Group
First – Dum and Dum
Second – Voodoo Doll, MarielaVeau and Voodoo Priestess
Third – Catrinas
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