Homecoming Mums!

Today is our school’s Homecoming. The football game is this evening and the dance is tomorrow. The game is, obviously, the big deal but there’s another big deal: the Homecoming Mum. That’s mum as in Chrysanthemum, not mum as in mother. It’s basically a Corsage of Insanity. They’re a tradition all over Texas but not anywhere else. And like most Texas traditions they’re completely over the top. Not only is there a giant fake mum, there are ribbons in the school colors, and all sorts of dangly things hanging from the ribbons: little footballs/musical notes/cheerleading things depending on the interests of the person. And of course cowbells. Smallish cowbells are hung from ribbons so it sounds like Santa is coming down the hallway. India says that the teachers get pretty fed up by all the noisy mums but it’s only one day a year. Some of the girls get pretty carried away and will have up to four giant mums all clumped together, resembling a flowery breastplate with feather boas hanging from them to complete the classy look.

Here are India and her boyfriend modelling theirs:
photo-1

Oh yeah, the guy wears one too. Only it’s smaller and goes around his arm. It’s called a garter and the girl makes one for her homecoming date/boyfriend and he makes the mum for the girl (or sometimes parents make them for kids or kids make them for themselves. It’s all socially acceptable.)  Only It’s usually the moms that get roped into these things. But Ethan and India decided to do theirs all on their own. So crafty! Even though these are corsages, they aren’t worn to the dance; only to school and to the game.

Homecoming mum green

A lot of people stick little teddy bears in the middle of the mum flower (for real), but my kids aren’t into that sort of cheese so they actually glued plastic animals into the middle after the photos were taken. It turned out pretty funny and different than all the other mums. Seriously, if you want your jaw to drop, just google “Homecoming mums” and take a look at the pictures. Usually it’s the smallest towns that go the most overboard. Some schools have strict rules about mums: one mum per grade (so a freshman would have one flower in her mum but a senior would have four), Juniors wear silver mums and Seniors wear gold. But I guess our school doesn’t have quite that much school spirit. Plus that seems like more of a Dallas-y thing. And you know those Dallas people!

Our exciting news about homecoming is that India was elected a Homecoming Princess. Tonight during halftime at the football game, Mister has to walk her out and present her. And then the Homecoming Queen is announced (she’ll be chosen from among the Princesses). It’s all pretty surreal since India–with her steady uniform of Dr. Who T-shirts and Converse tennies–isn’t really the sort of girl that I imagine as being in the Homecoming Court, but she is pretty cool. Apparently the kids at school recognize awesomeness after all.

The bad news is that orginially I had talked India into skipping the dance. It is such a pain trying to find a modest dress! But now that she’s in the homecoming court she has to go. So we’ve been trying to modest-ize a dress all week and it’s really not turning out how I was hoping. And she has to wear the stupid thing in front of an entire crowd tonight so I’ve got to whip it into shape.

York announced yesterday that he’s going to Homecoming now too. Fortunately he can just wear his black suit. But his date was most emphatic about not wanting a mum, so we’re off the hook. Which is lucky for us because mum supplies go fast. All the craft stores carry mum junk around here.

4 thoughts on “Homecoming Mums!

  1. Be sure to post both the picture of her dress, and the exciting news/video about the princess/queen contest! What a great girl India is!

  2. What you need to do is import grandma Boppie to make a closet-full of formals for India to wear to all her “occasions.”

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