The letter about Christmas jumper day came home folded into a tight square at the bottom of Alfie's book bag, next to a satsuma peel and what I hope was a leaf. It's next Thursday, 11 December, with £1 each for the charity bucket. The nativity is the Tuesday after, 16 December, and Alfie is a sheep. Before I'd finished reading, he asked whether he could be a dinosaur in the stable. I explained there weren't any dinosaurs in Bethlehem. He said there might have been.
The £3 rule
I made the rule in Isla's Year 3, after Viking day. The helmet and tunic were £17.99, she wore them for one afternoon, and they've lived in the dressing-up box ever since, worn by nobody. The rule is: never more than £3 on an outfit that gets worn for one day. It isn't about being tight. The dressing-up box is already full of the last mistakes, and half of what the school asks for can be built out of it. Last March's World Book Day cost £4 for the pair of them, mostly felt. Plenty of families buy a proper costume and enjoy it, and good for them. It's just that in this house the box fills faster than it empties.
The jumpers
Isla will wear last year's: grey, with a felt robin on the chest. It cost £4, the sleeves are now three centimetres short, and she says that makes it "look cosy on purpose". That's two Christmas jumper days, so £2 a wear, and the robin is down to one eye. She has asked for a new one. I've said we'll see how the robin does, and she has said that's what I say about everything.
Alfie's old reindeer jumper no longer meets his wrists, never mind his tummy. The PTA has had a jumper swap box in the school entrance since 24 November: bring one, take one, no money changes hands. His reindeer and Isla's Santa from the year before went in, and after drop-off on Monday I dug through the box for ten minutes. There was exactly one in Alfie's size, a snowman with a neck like sandpaper. He wore it for ten seconds, said it had teeth, and took it off. I put it back for somebody with a softer neck.
So on Wednesday, after the Aldi shop, I went into George at Asda for school tights and found a green jumper with a penguin in a scarf on the sale rail, size 5 to 6 years, £3. The scarf has a bobble, which Alfie has already pulled twice. He approves. That's Christmas jumper day sorted, and the rule held with not a penny to spare.
One sheep, £1.20
The nativity letter asked for a white or cream top and trousers, with ears supplied by home. Alfie already owns a white hoodie, so that was the sheep's body. On Sunday we made the ears at the kitchen table: black felt (40p for a sheet, enough for six pairs), edged with cotton wool (80p for the bag) and glued onto a hairband from the bottom of the school-bag drawer. The glue stick gave up halfway and the stapler finished the job. That's £1.20 for the sheep.
He has worn the ears since Sunday afternoon. He wore them to tea. He fell asleep in them, and on Monday morning I found a tuft of cotton wool on his pillow, which Mabel has since claimed as her own. Zain is a shepherd, and the school has asked every shepherd for a tea towel, so there will be a stage full of identical blue and white stripes. Alfie has noted that sheep get to say "baa" and shepherds only get to stand there.
What it adds up to
For all of December's dressing up: £3 for the penguin jumper, £1.20 for the ears and £2 in charity money, so £6.20 for both children. The robin costs nothing this year, because it's already paid for. Nothing here will join the Viking helmet at the bottom of the box, apart from the ears, which I suspect will be reborn as part of a dinosaur by about the second week of January.
