When I first posted about the Victorian Strolls I was getting ready for, I had plenty of ideas but hadn’t done much other than internet research. Once I got into the actual construction, things got labor intensive, but it was so fun. Click through to see how I dressed each person in the family and where we found the costume pieces.
Goals for our first costuming adventure:
A. To look Early Victorian Era (1860’s) to those who know what they’re looking at, and to look 19th century/old-fashioned to everyone else. B. To have fun and be comfortable.
I spent the entire month of November collecting items from around our house, sewing, crafting, and buying things to put together our costumes. I used a combination of hand-me-down clothes and craft supplies (like ribbon) as well as costume pieces for the kids, as well as sewing several larger pieces for myself and the Chaplain, like a vest, period-appropriate dress shirt, and my Zouave Jacket.
This year, Sunday, December 1, 2019 marks the beginning of Advent.
If you’re looking for an activity to remember Advent with your school age kids, I want to tell you about the book we used last year, a gift from my mom.
Jotham’s Journey: A Storybook for Advent, by Arthur Ytreeide, is a saga told day-by-day throughout Advent. The story takes place in Bible times and climaxes with the birth of Jesus.
What are the highs and lows?
When I first started pursuing costuming in earnest, I could barely find any events for costumers in my area, at least, not if you didn’t want to be a re-enactor.
I gradually started discovering events, like this one in Troy, NY, for steampunk folks.
But I always seemed to find out about the events days after they happened, and I knew I’d never be ready in time for the couple of other costume/masquerade-type of events I discovered locally ahead of time.
Then, I found not one but TWO Victorian strolls near our house scheduled within a week of each other in December.
My dad introduced us to Star Wars early on in our house. We watched the original films over and over as kids, and when we got older, religiously went to see the subsequent movies (We still do!).
I went to a midnight showing of one movie. Since it was actually at midnight, I have no idea which movie it was, because I dozed through parts of it. (I checked with my brother, who was with me that night and is a better historian when it comes to Star Wars movie watching. The episode I dozed through was Revenge of the Sith. I was a young single mom of a two-year-old who was still getting me up at night when that movie came out. I did watch it again later with my eyes open).
I’ve passed down my interest in Star Wars to the kids, although the franchise and its size have started to alienate me a little. It’s not the same, special thing it was when I was a kid, with a limited number of movies to enjoy. Someday there will be so many subplots and new characters that I won’t have any idea who half of them are (that may already have happened, as indicated above).
Two knows I’m a nerd, and she handed me Don’t Cosplay with My Heart, by Cecil Castellucci, after she’d read and enjoyed it. She’d read the “good parts” to Three along the way and thought I would like it, too.
