<p>Been talking at work about different HS Homecomings and the traditions each school has. This weekend is my S’s Homecoming. At his school, in addition to the Homecoming Football Game and Dance (seperate nights) the students nominate and vote on both Homecoming Queen (announced at halftime at the game) and King (announced at the dance) - my son actually made top 5 for King so he will be riding in the parade tonight!</p>
<p>In addition, today at the school pep rally, they have the Queen/King candidates participate in some sort of obstacle course set up in the gym in front of the school body - one girl gets matched up with one guy - I guess it’s all in fun and all happens after voting has taken place.</p>
<p>The dance is attended by all grades in HS, with dress varying from cute simple dresses for the girls to formal dresses and nice pants and a shirt for the guys to full suits. We had a delightful time (NOT!) last night running out to the outdoor mall to try and find a shirt, shoes and MAGENTA tie so my S could coordinate with his date! </p>
<p>Is it Homecoming time at your kids school? Or don’t some do a Harvest dance or something this time of year??? Any out of the ordinary traditions???</p>
<p>Most of the mums are so large that the girls have to wear them on a ribbon around their neck. They wear them to school on Friday, then to the game. The girls’ mums can easily cost over $100. Freshman-juniors are in the school colors. Seniors are in white/silver.</p>
<p>By the way, you don’t need a boyfriend/date to have a mum. Lots of parents order them for their Ds. The male version is the “garter” around the upper arm. The one we had made is so huge it could pass for a mum. </p>
<p>You decorate them with symbols of their ECs…band, drill team, soccer, etc. As far as I can tell, this is a Texas/Oklahoma thing.</p>
<p>Ha - makes me laugh. Yesterday I had to order the corsage for my son’s date. He hasn’t done a ton of dances and he is my only son, so I’m not a corsage “expert”. When I was talking to the florist, he asked if I wanted any special “details” - I wanted to make sure it was a wrist corsage so I said, “I assume that you make mostly wrist corsages now” - he laughed and said “Absolutely! Otherwise with today’s dresses there is nothing to attach the corsage to!!!” - of course! Dresses seem to START 6 inches below the neck these days!</p>
<p>Homecoming here is bigger than prom. Everyone goes. It is a whole week of activities (spirit) They have t-shirt days everyday of the week, where grades are assigned a genre of the theme and color. Srs are blue, jrs are red, sophs are black and fresh are orange. Then each day there is a theme…i.e. last yr one day was music srs got rock, jrs got country, soph got pop and fresh got rap. They all decorate their colored tee shirts with bands on them. On Friday they all wear their class yr on the tee shirt. Srs are given their tee with everyones name on the back. </p>
<p>I love the other tradition of our hs. The 1st home game and homecoming weekend. The entire football team in uniform walks to the downtown pizzeria. On every telephone poll is a football with the childs last name an number. It is just a great site to see 90 kids walking down the street.</p>
<p>This is a small high school, and sometimes I feel like I have been time warped, but I must admit this is a tradition that I love…as a giants fan I would like to see the tradition of wearing redskin gear on Monday after a win gone :p</p>
<p>abasket that would be funnier if it wasn’t so true!</p>
<p>missypie, how sad that there’s no dance! Is this a private school?</p>
<p>I agree those Texas mums (does anywhere else have them?) are ridiculous. Last year you could barely see my son’s petite date behind her giant mum. I thought the $40 (the school selsl them for proGrad fundraising) was VERY expensive. $100 is just crazy imho!!!</p>
<p>The girls remove them asap after the pictures are taken. I guess they are just expensive souvenirs.</p>
<p>No - large suburban public. They try a dance every few years but it never goes over well. </p>
<p>It’s funny when it is hot on homecoming night, because some of the girls wear short shorts and you can’t really see any clothes behind the mum!</p>
<p>At the game, the drill team does its “Bob and Sue” dance. It’s mostly father/daughter but I guess called Bob and Sue in case a girl substitues a brother, friend, etc. Last year it was a surfer theme. This year it’s Blues Brothers. Always fun to see the dads make dancin’ fools of themselves in front of everybody.</p>
<p>Here’s one of the sweetest traditions at the school: Just about every group nominates someone for the homecoming court…choir, drill team, marching band, volleyball, PALS, gymnastics, cross country, etc. There will be about 20 nominees of each gender. They are all called forward at a pep rally. Then the students vote and the top three senior nominees are the “court.” Last year, Son was the choir nominee (but didn’t make the court.) It is sweet to see these kids who aren’t widely known around the school getting recogntion. </p>
<p>Last year the Queen was the tall gorgeous volleyball team captain. The King was a beloved guy who had been brain injured since an illness in early childhool…not a dry eye…(From the second he was nominated I knew he would win. I sent emails to the local TV stations and one of them did a nice piece on him.)</p>
<p>Homecoming was a very small event at D’s school. Because of school size (160 students total HS count), they went to Prom every year with fansy dresses, hairdo, dinner, limo and not at school but at fansy Country Club and so forth. Having yet another fansy yearly event would be just too much. Homecoming was just a dance on school property.</p>
<p>Homecoming at D’s school is the standard week long thing. The classes compete in hallway decorations and at the pep rally and there is a parade on Thurs. The game is on Friday and the dance on Sat. The kids mostly go to the dance in groups, about half have dates and half go single. They do dinner first, some at restaurants but a lot of parents host dinners at home for the groups. We did one year and it was a blast.</p>
<p>The HS is only about 10 years old so they really don’t have what I think of as “traditions”.I attended a HS that has a football rivalry with another school that goes back to the 1890’s.We always had a HUGE parade with floats, etc.</p>
<p>Missy- love the mums! We wore mum corsages to the game way back when but I have yet to see one at the HS here. Also like the idea of different groups nominating for court.</p>
<p>Since we are on the Homecoming topic, I will tell you my favorite Homecoming story. When D was a sophomore, she and a friend found out that a guy they knew wanted to go but hadn’t asked a date and didn’t have a group, so they invited him into their group. The next year the same thing happened with someone else and D invited him. If I’m bragging here, it’s because I’m really proud of her for this.</p>
<p>Our school used to have a yearly tradition of a bonfire on Thursday night…they would gather a big wood pile over a period of time and then have the local fire dept. on hand incase anything went wrong…the last bonfire was the year a poor groundhog was hiding under the brush (unknowlingly) and came running out after the fire was set !!! I don’t think the poor guy survived. A new principal was in that year and that was the last year of the bonfire.</p>
<p>Our court starts at 20 girls and 20 guys too and then gets narrowed down to 5 of each.</p>
<p>We have this pathetic parade around the school, but at the end of it we have a big outdoor pep rally with fireworks. Allegedly, the senior class is supposed to fund raise all four years to put on a fabulous fireworks show…last year Son’s class was not very motivated in the fundraising department but everyone chipped in and there were still fireworks.</p>
<p>Oh, here’s another one. For a reason unknown to me, the drill team members make posters for the football team members all season. (Each girl gets one football player to make posters for - some of the sophomores have to do two.) Anyway, for homecoming, they do a “full glitter” poster, which means that every molecule of a large stiff posterboard is covered in glitter. It will take hours and hours and hours for D to finish hers and by the time it’s done we’ll all be tracking glitter all over everwhere. At least this year D knows her player - they’re friends, so I think he’ll keep the poster. But I think that most of them get pitched almost immediately.</p>
<p>This week is homecoming week at our school. Tuesday was jersey day when everyone was supposed to wear their sport jerseys. S2 wore a track suit, with the jacket unzipped, lots of gold chains, slicked his hair back, and carried a big cigar and told everyone to “fudget about it”. He won the spirit award for the day, but the band director (a real idiot) complained loudly that he didn’t think it was right that a kid who was mocking school spirit should get the daily spirit award. Clearly the rest of the school didn’t think so.</p>
<p>Oh lolulu, it wouldn’t be a high school without a few humorless teachers around to try to spoil everyone else’s fun.</p>
<p>Last year our Pep Boys did a skit that made fun of the fact that the band has been playing the same songs in the stands at games forever… It was funny because it is true and everyone in the band laughed. Only one of those humorless teachers feared that the band had taken offense, to the next morning the boys were dispatched to offer their sincere apologies to the band…jeez…</p>
<p>I’m sorry, missypie, but all those items in your link were just plain ugly. </p>
<p>Our homecomings dances are very formal. I was in charge of renting the limo, which wasn’t easy for a group of 19 kids. Girls have to go with the first boy that asks them, as you’re not allowed to turn down an invitation.</p>
<p>abasket, my son chose a magenta tie, too, and it wasn’t because he wanted to match his date. He just liked the color.</p>
<p>“Ugly” is pretty harsh…but I’d agree with garish and over the top. (Some of them even light up.) I don’t think anyone is trying for pretty or tasteful.</p>
<p>I loved my garish mum in HS. My sister had a ridiculous one with FIVE – yes, FIVE – flowers. She was less than 5 foot tall and had really big boods, so she looked like a battleship when she walked. Just insane-looking. Back in my day, dad buying you a mum, rather than a boy, was the sign of a loser; I’m glad that’s changed and now girls just get their own!</p>
<p>Homecoming here is not such a big deal. I think they do some Spirit Week stuff. Neither of my boys were interested in dressing like somebody’s twin or in 70’s clothes. </p>
<p>There is a vote of class princesses and then senior King/Queen. They all dress up and walk out on the football field at halftime where the winners are announced. The winners ride around the track on the backs of convertibles and get there pictures taken for the yearbook.
There is no dance (there wouldn’t be enough cops). Kids don’t dress up. There are no mums (I had mums at my h.s.).<br>
Our school is a large diverse public. We live in a bedroom community of a big city. Everybody is fr. somewhere else so there just aren’t traditons.</p>
A new principal was in that year and that was the last year of the bonfire.</p>