The Halloween Parade of Historical Figures

OK, so although I poked fun at A.'s Montessori school for sucking all the fun out of Halloween by having the kids dress up as historical figures rather than as vampires and princesses, I have to admit that it turned out to be pretty cool.

I arrived at 1pm to help the kids into their costumes. Some of the kids were already dressed and sitting on the floor in front. The kid next to the door, the first kid I saw, Jack, was dressed in a green shirt, burgundy suspenders and khaki corduroy pants. He had a pot on his head, which looked amazingly like the one I'd glue-gunned together the night before. In fact....the whole costume looked exactly like A.'s. At first I thought, "Wow! What are the chances? Hmmm. Pretty small, actually." I mentioned this to the teacher, who smiled and said that A., still in his uniform, had told her the same thing. I stopped and said, "Uh, no, I mean it's EXACTLY like A's. I think those are A.'s clothes."

"Oh. Hey, Jack, did you put your own costume on or did you put A.'s costume on?" Jack shrugged. Apparently he hadn't noticed that he was wearing clothes unlike any he had previously owned. When he headed to the back of the room to get changed, he saw a foil-covered pot in a bag and put on the clothes he found underneath. Not the most attentive to detail, our Jack.

"So, you have two Johnny Appleseeds to dress, I guess," she said to me. "Jack, find the bag you brought to class this morning," she said to Jack. So Jack climbed out of the clothes, handed them to A., and A. put them on. Then we found Jack his own clothes and foil-covered pot. He didn't seem to mind. He and A. just found it entertaining to be in their underwear at the same time.

There were three Johnny Appleseeds in the class; Jack, A., and another kid, all of whom had pots to wear on their head. There was one more Johnny Appleseed from the second grade, who hadn't gotten the memo about the pot and just wore a hat.

The kids lined up according to the century their characters lived, and then paraded around the courtyard.

First up, we had Queen Hapshutset and Cleopatra (Cleo's in A.'s class and is the cutest thing in the world):

Four Johnnys and an Abe:

One of my favorites, Lucille Ball:


Rosa Parks looked great for her age (yes, I know she's dead), and owned that bus:


I forgot who the guy in the suit was supposed to be, but that's one of A's friends as John Lennon right behind him. The first graders only had to say the name of their character into the microphone, but this guy added, "John Lennon...who saved the world with peace." (followed, of course, by Muhammed Ali who saved the world with a right hook).

And we finished with Michelle and Barack Obama. I actually got a lump in my throat that the African-American boy was dressed up as (hopefully) the next President of the United States. How many years ago would that have been unthinkable?


Oddly, no kid signed up to be John McCain.

It was quite touching. And the kids thought it was fun to have two costumes for Halloween instead of just one. Afterwards, we gathered in the first grade classroom for treats and the creation of veggie pumpkin faces: