One of those parenting 'moments'.....

[The Nappy Lady]

Picked my eldest up from school and was presented with a note telling me I need to organise an angel costume for her to wear in the school nativity...suddenly I am having massive flashbacks to my childhood and remember my Mum doing this for me. Can't believe I'm the Mummy now!

Anyone else got their first nativity coming up? Will there be a dry eye in the house?

Molly

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

According to the BBC, you need to hotfoot it to John Lewis and buy a ?50 bridesmaid dress. Anything else and you won't be a good mummy.

Nativity Oneupmanship

[sanity girl]

Luckily my daughter's nursery are providing her angel costume (looks like a bridesmaid dress from M&S, but it's dark blue with gold stars - odd) - I just have to provide the wings, which I found at the 99p shop in Camberwell. Ace!

[Moos]

Awwwww... I can't wait!

[lorraineliyanage]

Molly, I'm sure you're handy enough to sew something amazing, but I did get Bombi a very cute little star outfit from Sainsburys! It's not quite the traditional angel theme but maybe you could make O something like this?

[The Nappy Lady]

OK, so I did a quick Google for ideas, but I reckon it has got to be home made - otherwise its just not right....innit?!

I think there will be about 25 angels anyway, and they will all look lovely, whatever they are wearing!

Molly

[curlykaren]

gosh, didn't give you much notice did they?

[sanity girl]

now I feel bad for buying the wings and not making them...:-S

[Moos]

The main thing is the tinsel halo, surely?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

*************

hello

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[The Nappy Lady]

Hello!!!???

[The Nappy Lady]

Sanity Girl, I reckon you have to buy the wings, they would be evil to make....it's just I've got some that I picked up in a jumble sale YEARS AGO (I'm a bit sad about stuff like this and am prone to forward planning)....they are proper feather ones, very nice but will probably get totally trashed.

Tinsel Halo is essential - I agree.

I am sadly over excited by all of this, even the costume making.

CurlyKaren, the nativity is a week on Thursday (16th I think that is), so not too bad on the notice front I guess, though I guess a bit longer would have been nice....but hey, you know, us Mum's don't have anything better to do in the run up to Christmas do we...... :-S

[lorraineliyanage]

I am fairly useless at sewing unless it's sewing on buttons, but luckily Lou is a dabhand with a sewing machine, so costumes for school shall be his department! Phew, off the hook!

[craigy]

my little man is a shepherd and i was presented with a letter requesting a costume and bought it in sainsburys with 25% this week.... i felt really guilty and lazy as i thought that he will be there in his shop bought costume amongst all of those with sewing competent mothers and their home made costumes (like in our day) but when i spoke to the staff they said that almost all the kids had shop bought costumes.....

[snowboarder]

I think we mostly made our own at school - badly - supplemented by school dressing up store. I feel sick at the thought of having to make costumes..too much pressure...and actually I do remember having to be the narrator in the nativity play once as my mum didn't make me a costume one year when very little!!

[sophiesofa]

Oh it all sounds so cute!!! I hope all the nativitys go well and remember to take tissues.

When I was at school all my dad had to do was iron the school shepherd outfit but he ironed a hole in it and had to take it in about 20cm to hide the huge hole.

[The Nappy Lady]

Crikey, now I feel bad for sounding like a competitive Mummy with the whole home made costume thing...which I'm not at all, I guess I'm just being nostalgic about it, and as I can (sort of) sew I quite like the idea of having a go at making something. I may well be dashing to Sainsburys in a panic this time next week if it all goes pear shaped!

Can't believe anyone would spend fifty odd pounds on a bridesmaids dress though, for a nativity...really???

Craigy - do you mean it was 25% off at Sainsburys? If so that's a bargain. I think these days it is cheaper to buy like that than to pay for fabric to make at home yourself anyway. I randomly had some white and silver sparkly fabric hanging about in the dressing up box, so going to see if I can do anything with it.

Molly

[Goodliz]

Since my son started school he has had to wear heaps of different outfits e.g. pirate, Knights in armour etc. I read the letters with a feeling of dread! Anything I have tried to make has just been embarrassing (pirate was not too bad tho). So now I don't bother trying to make it myself. Ebay has some great dressing up costumes for those of us who are not handy.

Sanitygirl, don't feel bad about your wings.

Molly, I've seen many of your creations so I am sure your daughter will be one of the best dressed there!

[ryedalema]

Our two year old is starring in her first Christmas concert on 14th/15th and is an Elf - my husband suggested that Asda is really good for costumes, so will be heading there at the weekend. I don't feel the least bit guilty about buying said item - more time to spend with madam learning the words to jingle bells :-) (Plus less bleeding fingers/thumbs as I feed them through the sewing machine!)

There was something on TV this morning about parents spending up to 150 quid on costumes - serious! I'm so looking forward to seeing her perform - so loved being in my school plays - with my dad filming the whole thing (he was a TV cameraman so you can imagine what a performance he made of it). Really sad 'indictment on today's society' thing is that we've had to sign something from the nursery saying that we can't take any photos or film :-(

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I heard on the grapevine that there's been a run on elf costumes at Asda. Apparently Woolworths Online is the place to go.

[Gubodge]

One of my mad mothering things is that any fancy dress has to be homemade, preferably from fabric or clothes we have around the house anyway. Previous Christmases have seen me dyeing t-shirts yellow (she was a duck) sewing antlers onto dyed-brown hoodies (reindeer) and cutting up the seam of and old skirt of mine to make a cloak (wise, erm, lady). I'm secretly quite sad that both kids are in a concert rather than play this time round, so I don't get to create. It's only a matter of time before my cack-handed efforts are scorned in favour of shop-bought so I want to make the most of it.

(I even saved the offcuts from my ikea net curtains to add to the dressing-up box. They have been put to use as bridal veils, mummy wrappings, dolls blankets and ghost costumes so far, but I'm sure could be turned into a woderful angel costume if I added some silver tinsel, too.)

[sillywoman]

My Mum was a primary school teacher. I well remember the lead up to Christmas. Every year at October half term she and one of the other teachers would write a play. All the kids had a part - each scene done by a different class - and it was mostly done in doggerel, usually on a classic theme (Cinderella,The nutcracker etc.etc), but with a contemporary twist - spice girls one year. Once it was done then the costume making would start. It was almost all done with crepe paper, cardboard, tinsel, glitter, glue and staplers. What happened to crepe paper? The kids made them in school under the guidance of the teachers (materials provided by school), with a few of the Mums coming in to help out. They were fab. The plays were always done at the school in the evenings and the atmosphere was always electric. Going back to school in the dark after a quick tea and getting dressed with your friends. Then desperately scanning the audience of Mums, Dads, Nanas & Grandads to find your special person. Ooh it sends a shiver down my spine.

Have to say nothing my kids have done has quite matched up to the special feeling of those school Christmas plays for me. Doing it in the daytime just isn't the same, and their schools don't go much on traditional tales though in the last couple of years the infants have done a Nativity. I do think that as a Mum the school Nativity is a right of passage and the most crucial thing is to remember to take tissues - lots.

God bless all your little angels, shepherds, kings, sheep, donkeys and whatever this Christmas. I hope you all have a lovely time and keep lots of lovely memories for the years to come.

[ryedalema]

Thanks for the tip re. Asda. I'm off to Kingston tomorrow which has a huge store - hopefully it's far enough from ED that all the costumes haven't gone. Are quite a lot of nurseries doing 'elves' then?

[Ann]

I can reiterate Sillywoman's post wholeheartedly. I have lovely memories of my own children's nativities for sure; but can remember the 'evening performances' as a child . The pure magic of stage, lights , costume , audience and last but not least , make-up!

Going to school in the dark was fun. Are we all too PC these days to admit that a late night for a special occasion wasn't ruinous to a child's education?

Nappy Lady and others, enjoy your children's plays. It certainly makes all the sacrifice we mums make worth it.

Loveley thread Molly

[The Nappy Lady]

Nice idea about an evening performance - our school fayre was 3.30 to 6.30pm the other evening and I think the nativity could easily be at 6ish another year, and maybe it would mean more parents could make it. This is one of those times when I am SO GLAD I have the flexibility to be there without having to go through major negotiations as I would have done in my old life when I worked in the City.

Thank you sillywoman and Anne, I will suggest this to the school for another year.

Molly