Just as there is a trend toward high tech today, there is another trend toward high touch – homemade and wholesome.
–Meryl Gardner
I recognize that my desire to make WJ’s Halloween costumes is a little silly. But my mom made ours.
I remember watching the other kids come to school in store-bought costumes, the plastic suits reminiscent of doctor’s office dressing gowns and the shiny plastic masks with scratchy elastic, eyeholes the size of peas, and pinholes for air at the nostrils and mouth. I remember watching them walk through the piles of leaves in little bunches of superheroes and watching them climb onto the bus like a living listing of the Saturday morning cartoons. I remember watching them and being so jealous.
From my grown-up mommy vantage point, however, I am finding that a homemade Halloween costume is so much more fun and possibly holds a measure of nourishment I did not fully comprehend as a child. I like this idea of “high touch.” It must be genetic.
Last Friday night, our family set about the task of creating WJ’s requested mummy suit. We needed the costume for a party on Saturday morning so it was not the relaxed, taking things slow kind of moment I would have preferred. But we did have fun.
Everyone helped. WJ helped me rip a white sheet into long strips. Dave was on duty with the pulling off of loose strings.
And I was armed with my hot glue gun. I can knit but am not exactly a whiz with a needle and thread. In hindsight, I am not sure exactly why I felt it was prudent to wrap and hot-glue the white cloth to WJ’s costume while he was actually wearing it, but at the time it seemed very important and I only burned him a few times.
Was WJ pleased with his costume? Yes, he did not seem to mind that it was “high touch” instead of high tech. For now anyway. Ask me again this time next year.
Do you have any "high touch" traditions in your family?