I’ve been looking forward to all the holiday parties, plays, and dress up days for my son in pre-school. In theory, these sounded totes dorbs, but in actuality they are a ton of work. My son, Jericho, rotates classes every other day which means double of every holiday party, birthday party, and dress up day. I was all eager beaver the first month, but by Christmas I was about tapped out. Even while working full time and 9 months pregnant I managed to still provide at least something for all of his class parties, snack helper days, show ‘n’ tell, and dress up days. I kinda felt awesome. NBD. Unfortunately, my fabulous June Cleaver ways came to a screeching halt for the Christmas pageant.
Jericho was assigned the bright role of an angel in the Christmas pageant alongside his peers who posed as sheep, cows, shepherds, and others in the nativity scene. Per usual, I took to Amazon to fulfill all my shopping needs since I’m not one to romp around town looking for what I need when it could be done from the comfort of my oversized sweatpants on the couch. I wasn’t feeling the angel costumes as many of them were a little “girly” for me. They borderlined fairy/princessy. I decided instead to roam Pinterest to see if I could find alternatives, and I totally hit the jackpot. A pin linked to a great blog providing a no-sew instruction sheet for an angel costume. I followed the directions turning an only slightly drool stained white pillowcase into a luminescent angelic robe fit for Gabriel himself. I finished it off with a gold sash from a leftover Christmas project and let me tell you, it was not bad for a project that took me 4 1/2 minutes. I didn’t have any tinsel for a halo and forgot to pick up angel wings from a friend who was willing to loan them. This costume would have to do. C’mon, its preschool not broadway. I wasn’t about to sweat over it. I packed his costume into his backpack and sent him off to school promising him I would be there for his big debut.
A couple hours later I arrived with the throngs of other parents with cameras and iPads in hand to capture every song our littles sang. As the angels, all 10 of them, walked through the double doors to take their places I died with laughter and shock. While every other angel, who happened to be girls, looked like they had stepped out of Bibbity Boppity Boutique, my kid, who was donning his costume sans sash looked like he had rolled out of a slum. My husband leaned over, wide eyed, and whispered “our kid is a slum angel.” We couldn’t help it. Although I tried to oxi-clean the nast out of that pillowcase, let’s be honest, it still had a dinge to it. He was wearing his normal play clothes with a pillowcase cut open to make a neck and arm holes among glittery wings and tinseled halos. It was quite a sight. It was made only slightly better by the fact that he attempted to gnaw off the wings of the darling angel in front of him.
I was standing in the very back, snapping pictures with the rest of the parents and desperately trying to be embarrassed while biting my tongue as he stood stone cold while the kiddos sang about a chubby snowman. I decided at that moment, I would put my husband in charge of all costume design from that day forward. It clearly wasn’t my gift.
These preschool days are so much fun and I refuse to put wild expectations on them. They won’t be picture perfect… they’ll just be wildly awesome.