Will my child be scarred for life?

[DawnM]

ETA:   Sorry, my mistake, you all are correct, it is HOLIDAY and not "Christmas" although all the stuff I am finding really does center around more of a Christmas theme.   Lights, trees, Santa, red and green, Reindeer, etc....

ETA:   Ok, you all convinced me to go ahead and get something.   I ordered a shirt, a hat, and socks from Amazon.   The other two days are PJ day and something or other that we can pull together.

 

Original Post Below:

 

UGH.

A's school is having spirit week the week before Christmas break and they have on the list things like Christmas headgear, Christmas socks, Christmas ugly sweater.

I have none of those things and this week is so hectic that I am 99% sure I will not have time to go hunt these things down nor do I want to spend money on stuff like this to then have to find a place to store it.

Will he be scarred for life if he doesn't participate in spirit week?    (yes, rhetorical question, but I seem to need some reassurance.)

ETA:  We literally have NOTHING.   No old anything to decorate ourselves, no plain socks to color/sharpie, no hats of any kind available, no blank shirts or sweaters to make ourselves.    Everything he had in the past is still in storage, so I would still have to SHOP for everything.   

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by DawnM

[Hyacinth]

Does he WANT to participate in spirit week?

[alisoncooks]

Ugly sweater is easy to make if he has an old shirt/sweatshirt. Socks can be made, too — let him sharpie Christmas patterns on them. 

I know you didn’t ask for advice on how to do it — but we diy so much, that was my first thought. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by alisoncooks

[Heartstrings]

Not wanting to store it is valid and I personally hate all of that kind of stuff.  I will say though Walmart had all of that stuff this week so a quick trip could get all of it easily.  I would try to make it happen if the child wants it, since it’s a new school, but he definitely won’t be scarred for life though.  

[Drama Llama]

Scarred for life? No.  But you are going to make his days really hard and at a point when he is still setting the pattern for his friendships and behaviors in a new school.

As a teacher, I’d want a heads up because I would spend my own money to avoid putting a kid and the rest of my class through that.

If this was a kid without a trauma history, emotional problems, and a highly stressful transition going on I would feel differently.

[Katy]

No, he will not. But I would make an effort to go to one store if he wants to participate. 
 

Honestly participating in these things is a privilege. Less than half of the kids in my area participate. And with the really elaborate ones, sometimes half the girls but only 2 boys in the whole grade do it. 
 

ETA: I mean with the kindergarten dress up days. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Katy

[Hilltopmom]

I usually just have my kids wear their one Christmas shirt for each of those dress up days. I do buy one target holiday tee every year.

As a teacher, it pisses me off that we expect families to go out and buy all that crap.

I always stress to my students that they don’t have to participate or can wear what they want & share that I won’t be wearing Xmas pjs either. 
 

Right now Xmas socks are everywhere.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Hilltopmom

[Drama Llama]

Just now, Hilltopmom said:

I usually just have my kids wear their one Christmas shirt for each of those dress up days. I do buy one target holiday tee every year.

As a teacher, it pisses me off that we expect families to go out and buy all that crap.

I always stress to my students that they don’t have to participate or can wear what they want & share that I won’t be wearing Xmas pjs either. 
 

Right now Xmas socks are everywhere.

I agree 100%.  I advocate against them every time.  I also don’t think Christmas belongs in a public school.

But Kindergarten is the hardest age for a kid to be left out of something like this.  Even if I am talking and setting it up like you do, I would expect a 6 year old with a history of behavior challenges to struggle.

[mmasc]

41 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Not wanting to store it is valid and I personally hate all of that kind of stuff.  I will say though Walmart had all of that stuff this week so a quick trip could get all of it easily.  I would try to make it happen if the child wants it, since it’s a new school, but he definitely won’t be scarred for life though.  

This was my thought exactly. ^^^

[sassenach]

You could get a lot of this in one trip to target’s dollar section. I would find a way to participate in at least a few days. He’s brand new to the school. As annoying as it is, his psychological experience of fitting in matters quite a bit and is probably worth 20 bucks and a little bit of time. 

[Faith-manor]

This kind of stuff makes my head spin because sure, the earth is burning and many families are struggling financially, but let's engage in even more wanton consumerism of crap that will never be used again AND separate the haves and have nots at school where children are legally mandated to attend! 😠😠😠😠😠 @##$%%%&&%$$#@@#$$%&&%$$#@

So here is what I would do, take some Christmas cookie cutters and let him trace shapes onto construction paper, cut them out, and safety pin them to a sweater/sweatshirt he already owns. Take a white pair of soon to be worn out socks, give him green and red markers, draw away. Take a hat from your stash and let him safety pin fabric scraps or construction paper art to it. Put your husband in charge of this because men are good at ugly clothes contests. I swear they are geniuses at this. I am pretty sure we witnessed some guys who had just left ugly sweater contests and came directly to the Nutcracker last night. Epic, trash sweaters! Brilliant if ugly was the goal.

Don't buy a thing.

[marbel]

You should be able to get it all at Walmart or Target. Maybe you can even find it online at Target, order it, and do a store pickup. Let them walk around the store and gather the stuff up.  Once the week or season is over, you can donate it or toss it. 

I would have hated those things too, but I dismissed those things too much when my kids were little (not for school but in other situations). They weren't scarred for life (as far as I can tell so far) but they were unhappy. 

[Faith-manor]

39 minutes ago, Drama Llama said:

I agree 100%.  I advocate against them every time.  I also don’t think Christmas belongs in a public school.

But Kindergarten is the hardest age for a kid to be left out of something like this.  Even if I am talking and setting it up like you do, I would expect a 6 year old with a history of behavior challenges to struggle.

I agree about Christmas. If they just made a stab at "Happy Holidays" and whatever that means for each family is okay, I would be fine. One afternoon, cookies and milk with festive substitutions for students with allergies, and be done with it, I would be fine. But basically, they are shoving a specific belief system, be it santa or nativity, down kids throats. It really should not be legal, and what about all the children who celebrate Yul, Hanukkah, Kwanza, etc.???? Not to mention families who do not celebrate any such occasion. It is just once again separating out families who do not fit the waspy mold, and trying to shame them or force them into conformity.

My niece's children do not celebrate Christmas. Their dad is Wiccan/Pagan, not sure which. They celebrate the winter solstice. They feel very awkward this time of year because the kids and the teachers, even the principal makes fun of them, openly shaming them. Sigh.....

[Murphy101]

I hate all of that. Like. I hate it a lot and wish schools wouldn’t do any of it.  No body needs to waste that money or have that pressure. 

but. 

dammit. 

We are social creatures and it’s important to making it easier to endure for kids to feel they fit in a tribe they spend 6-8 hours 5 days a week. 

So if the school does do that, which I really wish they wouldn’t, I’d probably go buy the crap to make my kid’s life a bit easier. Totally worth $25-50 to do that. 

I would not have done that for my older kids/younger mom version of me 15 years ago.  But I would now. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Murphy101

[EKS]

Isn't this a public school?

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

All of the public schools my children have attended(only 3 schools but still) have done some sort of Christmas holiday week including a Christmas concert with traditional secular Christmas songs(about Santa and Rudolph). All the schools had kids who celebrated other traditions, including Jewish, Muslim and Hindu kids. Spirit week, Santa crafts, Christmas stories, you name it. 

Surprisingly, my daughter’s Christian school does not do much for Christmas except for a voluntarily Christmas concert that is full of religious songs.  Other than that, they do not do much for Christmas, because they have children of all faiths and do not want to make them feel excluded.  I have yet to figure out how this Baptist Christian school has managed to be more inclusive than our area public schools. 

[SKL]

Won't be scarred for life.  May feel awkward and "less than" though.

It should be easy to find some Christmas socks in a big store nearby, or you could make some as noted above.  For the other two, how about a red hat and scarf?  You could decorate them temporarily with some ribbon or tinsel or a bell.

I doubt your son will be the only child who doesn't have an "ugly sweater."

[HomeAgain]

He won't be scarred for life.  There will be kids each day that don't dress up/do the things either because they don't have them, don't want to, forgot, or are just not celebrating Christmas.

That said........if you have a minute after Christmas consider picking up 1-2 small things on clearance for the next year.  DS missed out on some spirit things last year because we bought him a school logo hat (not allowed at the school) and not a school logo shirt (which was poor quality).  This wasn't a big deal.  The next year we made sure he had a shirt of our choice in the right color without the logo.  For the rest of spirit week he opted out of Hawaiian shirt day, funny hat day, pajama day...he opted in for Anything But A Backpack day because it was easy.

[kirstenhill]

I haven't had kids in public school for elementary, but in our public middle/high school experience it is less than 50% that participate in dress up days.  I'd be shocked if he was the only kid not dressed up.   How many people really have an "ugly sweater" for their kids at every size every year? None of my kids ever had one, except my DD who got one as a gift in high school.  

I could see doing something silly for the Christmas headgear - taping a paper star or tree to a hat or something like that. 

[DawnM]

2 hours ago, alisoncooks said:

Ugly sweater is easy to make if he has an old shirt/sweatshirt. Socks can be made, too — let him sharpie Christmas patterns on them. 

I know you didn’t ask for advice on how to do it — but we diy so much, that was my first thought. 

We have nothing.   We would still need to go buy something.   He currently has 3 pr of socks that fit him and they all have Spiderman on them.   And he has no shirts or old anything.   In fact, most of his stuff is still in storage, along with ours.

[DawnM]

14 minutes ago, SKL said:

Won't be scarred for life.  May feel awkward and "less than" though.

It should be easy to find some Christmas socks in a big store nearby, or you could make some as noted above.  For the other two, how about a red hat and scarf?  You could decorate them temporarily with some ribbon or tinsel or a bell.

I doubt your son will be the only child who doesn't have an "ugly sweater."

Again, we would need to go shopping even for that.   Between now and then I have zero time to go running around looking for who has something.   And I have no ribbon or tinsel or bell.   Everything is still way back in the storage unit.   So I would have to shop for those as well.

[Heartstrings]

5 minutes ago, DawnM said:

Again, we would need to go shopping even for that.   Between now and then I have zero time to go running around looking for who has something.   And I have no ribbon or tinsel or bell.   Everything is still way back in the storage unit.   So I would have to shop for those as well.

If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.  It is what it is.   Put it out of your mind and focus on the other things keeping you busy.  

Edited December 4, 2023 by Heartstrings

[wintermom]

If you ds wants to participate, I'd make it happen. Could he go into Dollor Tree and pick out what he wants? 

[SKL]

Honestly, I would make a trip and buy something.  You should be able to find some things even at the grocery store.  Some small decorative items that you can re-use many times.  Some white socks colored with red marker for a candy cane effect.

I would not buy an ugly sweater though.  🙂

[Heartstrings]

2 minutes ago, SKL said:

I would not buy an ugly sweater though

They have t-shirts that say "This is my ugly Christmas sweater".  I would 100% buy that in a size or two up and use that every year if my kids were going to public school.  

[prairiewindmomma]

If you wanted him to participate, I would throw together a Walmart or Target order for parking lot pickup. It would take 5 minutes to throw together an online order and odds are you are swinging by one of those places soon on other errands.

I agree with the others—kindergarten + new school? We’d try to make it work. 

[Murphy101]

Yeah. I wouldn’t do it because I’m worried they’ll be scarred for life if I don’t. 

If I could, I’d do it because life in general is scarring enough that if such a thing could be made more endurable then why not bc the scarring stuff is often not avoidable by moms.

I’d still wish the schools wouldn’t do it though. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Coming back to add—you dont have to store the things. Call this an experience in your mind. You are giving him a $30 set of experiences, which for us is about the same as lunch at Chik-Fil-A and less than an afternoon of bowling. Part of the work of parenting in my mind is providing some of these sorts of things as finances allow. You take him to Disney and you are putting in a pool—this shouldn’t be a hard stretch for you. Do the thing, chuck the leftovers, and move on.
 

This has been one of the challenges of being an older parent for me—I am older, tireder, and more prone to blow off little things like this as unimportant—but this is Youngest’s only childhood. I try to make a conscious effort not to blow the little things off. 

[almondbutterandjelly]

Do you order your groceries online and do curbside pickup?  Check the grocery store website.  I'll bet they have some of that stuff.  Headgear and socks for sure.  Then you can just pick it up with your groceries.

[Katy]

Our Walmart will deliver stuff over a certain dollar amount for free, though you do need to tip the delivery driver. 

[klmama]

He's the new kid in school?  I'd pick themes from one or two days so he can feel like he's participating.  At a minimum, Christmas socks are everywhere right now.  Dollar Tree has those, as well as headbands with reindeer or Christmas lights, plus Santa and elf hats.  

[Tap]

Dollar store will have socks and some kind of hat, headband, necklace. I wouldn’t worry about the sweater but let him wear the other things again instead.

Personally, my kid very , very rarely participated in things like this. If it was important to them, they could make do with what we had.  And there is no scaring in any of them!!!!

Around here, maybe half the kids participate. The only ones we tried to do, was color wars because those who participate get counted. 

[Drama Llama]

You have at least a week.  You can get all these things on Amazon, delivered to the house.  When you are done wash them and give them to the teacher for whoever shows up without them next year.  

[DawnM]

Ok, guys, I will see what I can find.   This weekend is super busy.   Saturday I will be out from about 10am-8pm and then Sunday we have several things to go to, including a birthday party across town.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

9 minutes ago, DawnM said:

Ok, guys, I will see what I can find.   This weekend is super busy.   Saturday I will be out from about 10am-8pm and then Sunday we have several things to go to, including a birthday party across town.

Can you just order a few cheap things from Amazon and call it a day?

I refuse to go into stores for the most part between Walmart delivery and Amazon.

[Carol in Cal.]

Personally I’d try a local thrift store, and if I struck out I’d order online.

Scarred for life?  No.  A bit excluded, possibly in a memorable way?  Definitely.  

[chiguirre]

I'd definitely make the effort to either order the items from Amazon (watch with shipping delays though, everything I've ordered has taken longer than normal) or hit the Walmart/Target/grocery store/Aldi and get the stuff.

My 3rd grade nephew has had a couple of these spirit day things that's left me scrambling to find appropriate stuff. He needed a t-shirt with our local high school's colors. Navy and white shouldn't be hard but he literally didn't have anything in those colors. I was lucky to find an old rugby t-shirt of Trinqueta's. He was not psyched to wear a t-shirt from a girls team with all their names on the back but I warned him that he really needed to conform or it would be uncomfortable. He came home and thanked me for insisting that he wear the shirt. Apparently, rugby is cool, even girl's rugby and a "Going to State" t-shirt is golden. 

The peer pressure to fit in can be miserable and I wish schools didn't do this. But the consequences of not going along with the herd, especially if you're already an outlier for whatever reason, are severe enough that I would do my best to make sure he goes along with the spirit theme.

[kbutton]

I think if schools want to do more than one “Spirit” thing per year, they should make it a classroom craft ahead of time and be done with it.

As for other cultures—in some areas, people from other cultures and religions really do embrace the non-religious aspects of the holiday and take offense at the suggestion they don’t—I had a friend trying to be culturally sensitive that got called into HR for her troubles. 

[SKL]

I do understand why one wouldn't want to participate.  When my kids were little, I was not a fan at all.  I think I just had a couple of bright red shirts that, worn with plaid jumpers, would fit in with a Christmas theme.  We had a couple of Santa hats they could wear for Christmas hat day.  They had Christmas pj's from a prior year.  (And since we've never moved, these were easy to find.)  Other than that, I don't really remember participating in these things; I would tell my kids that if they wanted to do more, they could go make something.

But, my kids were not trying to fit into a new social situation.  I had had the opportunity to introduce my kids to their elementary class over multiple years.  In that respect, I agree that this compliance ask is more important to this child than it might be to other kids or in other situations.

[marbel]

10 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I think if schools want to do more than one “Spirit” thing per year, they should make it a classroom craft ahead of time and be done with it.

As for other cultures—in some areas, people from other cultures and religions really do embrace the non-religious aspects of the holiday and take offense at the suggestion they don’t—I had a friend trying to be culturally sensitive that got called into HR for her troubles. 

This has been my experience as well - not the HR part but knowing many people of different faiths/no faith who celebrate the cultural/secular holiday of Christmas in the US, while also observing the holidays/holy days of their own culture/faith. 

Santa Claus, penguins, snowflakes, and other Christmas motifs have nothing to do with religion at this point. And I've known some Christians who don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday either, but just enjoy the festivities. 

I mean I think schools may take it over the top, but celebrating the biggest cultural holiday of the year in school doesn't seem like a crazy thing to me. 

 

[Clarita]

He won't be scarred for life, at some point (even if he's gung ho about participating now) realize it's stupid. 

To the comments about it being potentially unpleasant for your child, yes some school go over the top with it and really do make it uncomfortable for children. As a student of one of those districts, I'd say I was bummed until about middle school. Around 4th or 5th grade I crafted my own sprit things, really just taped some construction paper thing to my clothes or whatever. This is along with making up vacation stories, what Santa got me, etc. 

[Terabith]

I had parents last year shocked (and honestly I think disappointed) that I didn’t do those kinds of things with my class.  But how many 2-3 year olds own an ugly Christmas sweater?  My kids wouldn’t wear sweaters at all as toddlers.  And frankly I don’t have the executive functioning to make my own and other people’s lives more complicated.  We will have a Christmas program and snacks. I think that is good enough.  I’m legitimately morally opposed to schools doing these kinds of stupid spirit days. But at the same time I also tried to allow my kids to participate. (Okay, my oldest.  My youngest had decided they were dumb by age five.  But she’s pretty immune to peer pressure.) I remember how awkward I felt when I forgot about such events in school.  I would either make a target/ Walmart run or order something on amazon.  (But amazon is slow these days so it wouldn’t be my first choice.)

[Catwoman]

6 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

So here is what I would do, take some Christmas cookie cutters and let him trace shapes onto construction paper, cut them out, and safety pin them to a sweater/sweatshirt he already owns. Take a white pair of soon to be worn out socks, give him green and red markers, draw away. Take a hat from your stash and let him safety pin fabric scraps or construction paper art to it. Put your husband in charge of this because men are good at ugly clothes contests. I swear they are geniuses at this. I am pretty sure we witnessed some guys who had just left ugly sweater contests and came directly to the Nutcracker last night. Epic, trash sweaters! Brilliant if ugly was the goal.

Don't buy a thing.

I know your heart is in the right place here, but I would never do something like this to the poor kid. 

He is already the new kid in class, and what you are suggesting will set him apart from the other kids in a very negative way. 

Personally, I think Dawn could get everything she needs quickly and easily with a quick trip to Walmart or Target, or do as others have already suggested, and order online for a curbside pickup. But if she really can’t manage to do that, I would have A opt out of everything rather than show up with construction paper safety pinned to his clothing and magic marker on his socks, because quite frankly, that would look pathetic and he would probably be subject to a lot of mocking and teasing. 

I know how busy Dawn is, and I normally would not suggest adding more work for her, but in this particular case, I really think it’s important for A to fully participate in the class festivities and feel like he’s part of the group.

[Faith-manor]

12 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

I know your heart is in the right place here, but I would never do something like this to the poor kid. 

He is already the new kid in class, and what you are suggesting will set him apart from the other kids in a very negative way. 

Personally, I think Dawn could get everything she needs quickly and easily with a quick trip to Walmart or Target, or do as others have already suggested, and order online for a curbside pickup. But if she really can’t manage to do that, I would have A opt out of everything rather than show up with construction paper safety pinned to his clothing and magic marker on his socks, because quite frankly, that would look pathetic and he would probably be subject to a lot of mocking and teasing. 

I know how busy Dawn is, and I normally would not suggest adding more work for her, but in this particular case, I really think it’s important for A to fully participate in the class festivities and feel like he’s part of the group.

Is this an upper income area? Our school district is low income so I am used to seeing a lot of homemade options, some of them quite funny and creative. Parents are really striking back and protesting against the insanity. Inflation is kicking everyone's tushes.

Yes, I suppose if everyone else is spending a tidy sum, it just makes him stand out in a bad way. Sigh. I didn't think of the fact that they probably are in a more affluent area.

[DawnM]

23 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Personally I’d try a local thrift store, and if I struck out I’d order online.

Scarred for life?  No.  A bit excluded, possibly in a memorable way?  Definitely.  

stopped at the thrift store on the way to work.  I realized I didn't have a glass bowl for my 7 layer salad for the party this Saturday.   I looked for the holiday stuff for school,  but they had nothing.  They did have the bowl though.    I think they always have glass bowls, which is why I went there.

I just ordered a few things on Amazon.   

Edited December 5, 2023 by DawnM

[DawnM]

Just now, Faith-manor said:

Is this an upper income area? Our school district is low income so I am used to seeing a lot of homemade options, some of them quite funny and creative. Parents are really striking back and protesting against the insanity. Inflation is kicking everyone's tushes.

Yes, I suppose if everyone else is spending a tidy sum, it just makes him stand out in a bad way. Sigh. I didn't think of the fact that they probably are in a more affluent area.

Are you asking me or Cat?

Yes, our area is uppper income, although not as snooty as where we used to live.   

[Faith-manor]

2 minutes ago, DawnM said:

Are you asking me or Cat?

Yes, our area is uppper income, although not as snooty as where we used to live.   

Just responding to the idea that my idea might not be good in districts not my own.

[DawnM]

52 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I had parents last year shocked (and honestly I think disappointed) that I didn’t do those kinds of things with my class.  But how many 2-3 year olds own an ugly Christmas sweater?  My kids wouldn’t wear sweaters at all as toddlers.  And frankly I don’t have the executive functioning to make my own and other people’s lives more complicated.  We will have a Christmas program and snacks. I think that is good enough.  I’m legitimately morally opposed to schools doing these kinds of stupid spirit days. But at the same time I also tried to allow my kids to participate. (Okay, my oldest.  My youngest had decided they were dumb by age five.  But she’s pretty immune to peer pressure.) I remember how awkward I felt when I forgot about such events in school.  I would either make a target/ Walmart run or order something on amazon.  (But amazon is slow these days so it wouldn’t be my first choice.)

This is a school wide event, it went out in the weekly email from the principal.

[ktgrok]

I saw you ordered on amazon, but seconding the Dollar Tree if more is needed. 

[KungFuPanda]

Do you own Christmas decorations? Can you safety pin something to his clothing and call it a day?