On June 29, 2009, exactly seven days before my third birthday, my little brother Jeffrey Yeh came into the world. I always say he was the best birthday present I ever received. Ever since that day, our mom instilled in us one principal family rule: “the two of you are a team.”
So Jeffrey and I became an iconic partnership — the likes of which mankind had not seen since Snoopy and Woodstock. One manifestation of our inseparable bond was our inspired matching Halloween costumes. The tradition began in 2009, the very year Jeffrey was born, and thus the precedent for the next 14 years was set. For so long, the idea of dressing up separately was unspeakable.
Since we now spend our Halloweens in different states, we decided my departure for college should mark the natural end of our matching costumes. In many ways, this was for the better. I can hardly imagine we could coordinate a costume equally befitting our vastly dissimilar contexts of frat basement and high school classroom.
Still, our costumes throughout the years are valuable representations of how we connected over the interests we have shared. As I dug through photo archives, researching for this article, I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia for a time when my Halloween costume did not have to cater to the nebulous social landscape of the college campus and, instead, was merely an expression of what brought joy to my brother and me.
2009: Tigger and Winnie the Pooh
As a four-month-old infant, I fear Jeffrey did not have much of a say in this one. In fact, these early years are solely reflective of what I wanted to be for Halloween — Jeffrey was just along for the ride. This was the year of my Winnie the Pooh obsession, sparked by my repeat viewings of “My Friends Tigger and Pooh,” a 2007 Disney Junior show with primitive 3D animation that is slightly disturbing in retrospect.
It was upon my insistence that my whole family dressed up as characters from the classic childhood story. I was adamant on being Tigger, the hyper-energetic and relentlessly positive tiger who constantly used his tail as a pogo stick. It was an easy choice, for then and now, I have a tendency to bounce around. Jeffrey’s gentle soul and chubby baby body made him a shoe-in for Pooh.
And thus it began.
2010: Elpheba and Fiyero
The following year, my parents asked whether I wanted to rerun the family costume. My answer was an emphatic yes. However, I made it their responsibility to build their costumes around my decision to go as Elpheba from the Broadway Musical “Wicked.”
Perhaps this is an unconventional choice for a four-year-old, but I had fallen in love with the musical after listening to the full soundtrack with my mother during car rides. I would wait for track four, “What Is This Feeling?” when my mom would loudly sing over the lyric “loathing” with “loving” to express her love for “your face, your voice, your clothing.”
Perhaps I felt an affinity with Elpheba for the alliteration of our names, or because I was mesmerized by the vocal power of Idina Menzel. In any case, my passion for the show demanded I paint my body bright green. I insisted Jeffrey should be Fiyero, whom Elphaba frantically saves in the second act. Don’t think too much about the show’s romantic storyline. I certainly didn’t.
2011: Batman and Superman
If you are my father, five is about the age you start your daughter on superheroes. My education in Batman films began with Tim Burton’s “Batman” (1989) and proceeded chronologically in anticipation of 2012’s “Dark Knight Rises,” which would complete Nolon’s Dark Knight Trilogy. After watching George Clooney take on an ice-pun slinging Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wouldn’t want to don the mask?
Crucially, I wanted to be Batman, not batgirl. There is something tender and refreshing about my childhood naivete regarding gender norms. At times we can be so pre-occupied with conceptualizing a costume that will resonate with others that we forget the ethos of Halloween is to break free of social restrictions. It is the one night we can be anything or anyone, even if it defies our socially prescribed identity.
My ill-fitting costume, designed for boys, certainly suggests manufacturers did not find it worthwhile to create this set for my demographic. But why shouldn’t a little girl be Batman?
2013: Leia and Luke
As brother and sister, how could we not do this costume? Luke and Leia remains my personal favorite from our repertoire, likely due to the fact that Jeffrey and I continue to be massive Star Wars fans. At its heart, Star Wars is a story about a family. The fate of the galaxy depends on the siblings’ heroism.
Star Wars is unique among films of its genre in its portrayal of a sibling relationship between its male and female lead, and I find this a potent reminder that love does not need to be romantic to be profound. It is in fierce protection of his sister that Luke gives into his anger and strikes Darth Vader in their climactic final battle, and it is due to the Skywalkers’ unwavering commitment to each other that they are able to overcome the Empire’s doctrine of hate.
As a seven-year-old, dressing up as Luke and Leia felt like a small echo of that same devotion — two siblings facing the galaxy together.
2016: Bee and Slug
The most niche of our costumes so far, Bee and Slug, comes from a special episode of the children’s TV show Wonder Pets titled “The Adventures of Bee and Slug.” This episode deviates from the show’s traditional narrative structure that begins in a classroom with the three protagonists Linny, Tuck and Ming-Ming, instead opening on the “two friends” Bee and Slug going up and down on a see-saw.
Slug has an ardent desire to fly and see the world from above like his friend Bee can. In an effort to actualize his friend’s dream, Bee convinces Slug to steal the Flyboat, which the Wonder Pets leave unattended, so that Slug can experience the joy of flight. The symbolism here is that I too would go to any length, including grand theft auto, if it contributed to my brother’s overall happiness.
Moreover, this costume marked the turning point of when my brother’s input began to influence our costume. I loved “Wonder Pets,” but I was ten years old and starting to age out of the show. I believe this was the first year I asked him, “what do you want to be for Halloween?” His suggestion of Bee and Slug was not objectionable, but one I would have come with on my own.
From then on, our costumes became solidified as a collaboration. Relinquishing my tyrannical rule over the holiday, we began a constructive annual discourse that I find emblematic of what makes siblings so valuable. Over the years, we grew practiced in the art of compromise and its accompanying necessary sacrifices. What we individually wanted to dress up as mattered less than our shared determination to dress up together.
Our subsequent costumes were similarly saturated in pop culture: Zelda and Link, Black Widow and Hawkeye, Kiki and Totoro to name a few. They were always a reflection of what show we were watching or game we were playing and the myriad ways Jeffrey and I spent time together.
2023: Lara Croft and Nathan Drake
The last costume we ever did together, in my senior year of high school, was no exception. For the previous year, my brother and I had sat together in my room, huddled around a handed-down TV, to play through the game, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. While the action-adventure game is single player, we facilitated our own multiplayer experience by passing off the controller at every cutscene.
The Uncharted and Tomb Raider series that Drake and Croft respectively hail from are infamous for their less-than-subtle imitations of each other between releases. Having watched Jeffrey mature into a thoughtful, passionate creative with a wicked sharp sense of humor, I most definitely borrow from those aspects of his disposition I find so admirable. And while I may be flattering myself, I imagine that, after years of going along with whatever reckless ideas I concocted, there’s a little bit of me in him as well. In the same way, Drake and Croft are foils of each other. They have their differences as characters and franchises but at the end of the day are just two adventurers hunting for treasure, each defined by the other’s evolution. I cannot think of a better costume for our Halloween swan song.
Even though we never actually “are” our Halloween personas in a literal sense, more often than not our costume choices speak to our actual interests and personalities, or even our aspirational qualities. Halloween costumes are characters we actively desire to embody, at least for one night.
For Jeffrey and me, Halloween was an opportunity to express who we were to the world: a dynamic duo and unapologetic, utter nerds. This, I feel, demonstrates the transcendent nature of our fraternity. No matter what identity I assumed on Halloween night, the one constant was my brother, right by my side, ready to undertake the same transformation.
So I can say with certainty that as we mature into our adult lives, regardless of the people we become, Jeffrey and I will forever be “a team.”