To be so so sick of dress up days...

[Orangeanddemons]

So, we had a Roald Dahl one in September. Now we've got an Egyptian one. The school helpfully send home a sheet on how to make a costume from that old favourite...ye olde white sheete. Except we don't have any.

So, fabric £6:00. Then some gold fabric paint to decorate, another fiver.

Next 1/2 term we have Christmas Jumper Day. Yippee more expense

You forgot World Book Day on Friday.
Christmas jumper day? That sounds like seven shades of dreadful wrapped in a fairisle chunky yarn.

You have my sympathy and .

We've never had a book day thankfully. I'm the least creative person you can imagine.

We do, however, have a day where they dress in Halloween costume. And Green Day (the day before St. Patrick's Day). And a Christmas costume night in scouts.

You'll probably pick up a cheap Christmas jumper in Primark.

Was it instructions like these?

Use a giant t-shirt (one of his dad's?) instead of the sheet.

Or send him as a mummy or a cat?

In 15 years of sending Dc to school, I have never spent a single penny specifically on dress up days. I made it a matter of principle from the start. Costumes have always cobbled together from things we already had.

There are always ideas on the internet, then you just have to think laterally in your interpretation.

Christmas jumper should be a jumper he already owns with baubles and tinsel pinned on. Or an old one decorated with felt tips.

Not dissimilar. Except it suggested Glow in the Dark paint too. A real ancient Egyptian custom there, and the one thing everyone has lying around dont they?

You have my sympathy. I can't sew to save my life. Fortunately our school doesn't seem to go over the top with dress-up days and we don't have too many of them. Pirate day I managed by making the bottoms of old trousers ragged, pinning a parrot to him and making a paper pirate hat from an internet template. Years 3 and 4 had a Greek day recently which I hope they discontinue by the time DS reaches that age.

But I have a degree in Textile. I can sew or make anything

But I still hate it

Textiles even

I'm trying to suggest our school asks parents to donate any old costumes they are happy to give to the school. PTA could do a loan scheme so you can borrow a pirate, Roman, Egyptian, storybook, superhero, costume of particular decade etc!

That's a good idea Wolfie
It all seems very competitive these days, not to mention the expense.

YANBU

It helps if you have enough notice too.

I've trotted this one out before on here; but i'll always remember my worst dress up day nightmare. When DD2 was in year 4 or 5 she came downstairs at about 9.30pm one evening blerey eyed having ''remembered that she had to go in dressed as Hedwig the Owl tomorrow''.

I cant even remember why it was. It wasn't world book day, as having 2 other DCs at the same school i couldn't miss that. No, it was something specific for her class to do with a bird project i think.

Well, like a fool i did it. Just couldn't face sending her in with no costume. I was up till about 1am and made the costume using that thin polestyrene (sp?) wrap stuff which came off a big roll i luckily had hanging around from work. It looked good. But Jesus ... the stress!

I gave up, I brought a load of plain Fruit of the Loom tshirts from amazon for about £1 and some fabric pens/paints.

Dd then designs what she wants on a piece of A4 and then I help her draw it on the tshirt. If she's lucky I might stitch some extras on like some ribbon and pom-poms on the Xmas tree one for Xmas last year.

You have my sympathy. So far I've made a nutty professor, a fantasy Mr Fox, a high school musical basket ball player, a farmer, Prince William, a pilot and a Roman solider. For my husband. A teacher. It isn't just the parents that suffer! and the head that decides these things doesn't have to dress up!