Tim Burket never lets his daughter down on Halloween.
The South Carolina dad built a 7-foot, 8-inch Groot costume so he can accompany his “Guardians of the Galaxy”-obsessed 3-year-old, Amelia Grace, while trick-or-treating in their North Augusta neighborhood.
“Our neighbors have come to expect it,” Burket, 37, told ABC News of the family’s annual epic costumes.
Amelia Grace will be decked out as Rocket Raccoon, and his wife, Catherine Burket, will be dressed as Gamora, he said.
He estimated that it took him 302 hours to build the Groot costume using material from years past. He also installed a cooling fan inside and wears 16-inch painter’s stilts to make himself taller.
“We started in July,” he said. “After I’d get off work and we put her to bed, I would go back out to the garage shop in the backyard and I’d be out there from 8 p.m. to 11 or midnight.”
Burket said Amelia Grace became infatuated with the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies after seeing the second one featuring Baby Groot in theaters.
“In preparation for that movie, I showed her the first one at home. Everything was Groot and Rocket and Gamora from then on out,” he recalled. “She’s got a sassy personality and she really likes Rocket, so she kept telling us starting in June, ‘I’m going to be Rocket for Halloween.”
Burket said he and his wife have always let Amelia Grace pick out their costumes for Halloween too, and despite joking that he’s “not as ripped as Chris Pratt,” who plays Star-Lord, he still thought he could “totally pull this off” if his daughter asked.
“But she said, ‘No Daddy, you gotta be Groot. That’s Rocket’s best friend,’” he said with a laugh, explaining that changed his costume plans quite a bit.
The family also shared photos of their costumes from previous years.
Tim Burket and daughter, Amelia Grace, test our their Halloween costumes in the backyard.
2016 – Yukon Cornelius and Bumble the Abominable Snowman
Last year, Burket and his daughter dressed as Yukon Cornelius and Bumble the Abominable Snowman from the animated Christmas classic, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Burket used the foam from his Bumble costume to make this year’s Groot costume.
“The Bumble costume was so big we weren’t able to store it after Halloween, so I ended up having to take it all apart,” he said. “But all the foam I used for him, I recycled for Groot. So he lived on and made things more economical.”
2015 – “Labyrinth”
Burket dressed up as Jareth the Goblin King, his wife was Sarah and their daughter was Ludo.
2014 – The Flintstones
“My wife and I have always been pretty big on Halloween, but since the inception of our daughter, she is really crafty and artistic herself,” said Burket. “The first year she was only 3 or 4 months old, so we dressed her up as Pebbles and we were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.”
(Story from abcnews.go.com)
