The first time I learned of it was when my daughter was in high school and was actually going to a homecoming dance. I say “actually” because my daughter in high school was much like her mother in high school - completely ambivalent when it came to the popular social gatherings like dances, glee clubs, sleepovers . . . neither of us gave a flip about such things. But on this particular occasion, my daughter was going and I had driven her there and was dropping her off.
“What the heck is hanging off all those girls?” I asked, watching a herd of teenagers cross the parking lot, headed for the school gymnasium. Not only were they dressed in Roper style jeans, cowboy shirts and boots (that particular dance happened to fall during the rodeo), but several of them sported massive arrangements that swung from their overly proportioned chests. From my vantage point, they looked like corsages on steroids. While a few were more delicate and modest, most were ornate to the point of being gaudy. I saw a full sized teddy bear glued to the center of an artificial flower and from it hung a multitude of streamers, ribbons, and bells. ‘Is that actually a cow bell?’ I wondered. Most of them centered around the school mascot - a fluffy stuffed eagle crammed into the middle of the flower. But the dangling mass of jiggling bobbles remained the same. Some were so large they had to be worn around the neck like a tie, suspended by a thick, decorative cord.
“Oh those are mums, mom.”
“What do they do?” I asked.
“They just hang there. The girls wear them to school on homecoming day and then to the dance.”
“Why?”
“It shows they have a date to the dance.”
‘Like a label?’ I wondered. A huge, heavy, dangling label. I couldn’t help but wonder what it said about all the mumless girls like my daughter. Did it scream wallflower like some stamp of disapproval? Not that my daughter gave a flip about that either. We gave each other a smirk and a hug and I told her to have a good time before I drove home thinking what a silly tradition was all this mumery.
Fast forward about ten years and you’ll get to this time last year when my son was a freshman at his sister’s alma mater. However (and isn’t there always a however?), unlike his sister, my son loved the social aspect of high school and couldn’t wait for the homecoming dance. He’d asked a little friend of his and I was tickled for him. Then, about a week before the dance, some of the other moms were talking about the mums they made for their son’s dates. ‘What?’ I thought, feeling a rush of panic spread from my gut up to my face. Was I supposed to make a mum?! I asked my son when he got home that day and he said his friend would be ‘okay’ without one. But I sensed a hint of dejection in his answer.
‘Okay? Just okay,’ I thought. What did that mean? I vacillated for days until finally I talked to some of the moms at the yoga center. They all gave me the same answer and yet still I clung fiercely to my denial – ‘it’s a silly tradition,’ I thought, ‘one we don’t need to feed.’ Nevertheless, from the parking lot, I picked up my cell and called a good friend who’d already gotten her two teenage girls through high school (and countless mums, I assume).
“Oh Linda, it’s a huge deal,” she told me and the emphasis was hers not mine. “His friend will be the only girl there with a date and no mum. In fact even girls without dates are starting to make their own mums because it’s such a loved tradition and everyone wants one as a memento.”
‘Oh good God!’ I thought. I’m about to commit a Texas-mom faux pas over something I think is ridiculous. But, regardless of how I felt about the tradition, it was my son’s reputation we were talking about here. Thankfully for me, there was a flower shop in the same strip as the yoga center and I popped myself in, asking about mums.
“Your lucky!” the florist said, “we happen to have one left.” And she showed me the gaudy, dangling thing strung with ribbons and garland and artificial everything. It was huge! And so was the price. I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t about to pay that much for something the girl herself would have been ‘okay’ without! It probably cost more than her jeans and cowboy boots combined! (Actually, they no longer had homecoming during the rodeo so the girls were back to wearing dresses.)
“So what are my options?” I asked and the florist told me about a grocery store that sold pre-made mums.
“But it won’t be a custom job like this one,” she reminded me, holding the monolith up to her chest so I could get the full effect of her handiwork.
“I think that’s okay,” I said and I hopped into my car and headed toward the nearest Krogers. The florist had been right, there were plenty left there. And the price was only about half as much as she’d wanted for mum-the-gargantuan. But, it was obvious they were mass produced, not unique in the slightest and not nearly as creative as the one I’d just been introduced to.
‘I can do better than this,” I thought, ‘and probably for half the cost.’ And so it was that I spent the remaining two days before homecoming visiting all the Michaels and Hobby-Lobby stores in my locale, desperately searching for mum paraphernalia. The selection was scant this late in the game (or close to the game as was the case). There were no fuzzy eagles left at all so I had to find something else to stuff into the middle of the thing. And when it came time to find gold letters to spell out the happy couple’s names, the only ones left were Qs, Zs and Xs. I ended up buying gold lame paper and using my Cricut cutting device to create my own lettering. Then I ran the letters through my sticker maker to get the gummy surface on the back (yes, I scrapbook too).
While it probably wouldn’t have won any mum awards, it was passable and from what my son said, his date was appreciative.
I thought of mums whenever I visited the craft store for the next few months after homecoming. In fact, I was tempted to start buying little eagles, teddy bears and other such what-not, knowing there was a good chance I’d be making a mum this year too. But I didn’t. And now, as suspected, the saga has continued, only this time, with a new wrinkle.See this year, my son has expanded his social networking and is dating a girl from a neighboring school. So, oh my gosh! What’s the mum protocol when you cross boundaries! Does the girl wear the boy’s school colors to show her social sophistication? Or does she stick with her own colors so as not to stand out in the homecoming crowd? And what if they decide to attend both school dances? Am I expected to make two mums, one for each school? And if I have to make a mum with her school colors, well, you know what that means - all different colors, all different gadgets and do-dads! And, instead of a fluffy eagle, I’ll have to figure out what the other mascot is and find a fluffy one of them.
But okay, nothing is worth getting so worked up over. And this was no exception. As it turned out there’s only one mum to be made and yes, it does need to be in her colors. But I learned that I can go to the Hobby-Lobby closest to her school and they will, of course, carry all the mum thingies in all the right shapes, sizes and colors. Whew! Just one trip instead of several. And the best part is that her homecoming is scheduled two weeks after my son’s so, unlike the two days I had last year, this year I’ll have plenty of time.
So I sent an email to a couple friends whose sons are the same age as mine. I asked if their sons were taking dates to the dance and if so, had they planned to make their own mums and if so, would they like to get together for a mom’s mum making party - sort of like a mother’s day in. Of course ours would include a lot of wine-drinking to enhance the whole experience for the mum moms themselves.
“You’re such a good mom!” one of my friends said after declining my invitation and confessing to having bought hers from Krogers. ‘It’s true,’ I thought, ‘I am a good mum mom.’ Silly or not, ridiculous a tradition as it is, I think I’ve done well. And I think even my daughter would be proud – of course, after she finishes razzing me about it.
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