I thought it may be a bit of fun to show each other what costumes their smalls are wearing this year!
I have two I am involved in.
GS2 wants to be Percy Jackson. As his brothers actual name is Jackson he refers to himself as Percy Ozzy which is
his name
DD1 is delighted with that as there is no costume, he just needs a shield, so Granddad is on shield duty and I will paint it when made.
GS1, remember him, the history nerd? He wants to be a Norman, specifically William the Conqueror, because of me finding out we were his descendants! Yesterday we needed a trawl through the second hand book shop for any books of the period. Being a perfectly average 8 year old he came away with a Domesday book and Anglo Saxon chronicles because they are both authentic of the time! He also took home my book on the Bayeux tapestry so he could study the bits with William in.
Then we had to look online for what real Normans wore as he had already looked at the costumes for kids on Amazon but he told me they all had the wrong clothing or the wrong shaped shield
So I will be making him a tunic (luckily he doesn't mind it being not authentic fabric as long as it looks right), Granddads shield making duties involve a proper kite shape shield (doesn't everyone know the Normans didn't have round shields?), I need to paint the family crest on the front. The discussion on that was immense. Should it be the real William's royal crest? Would that be too generic? Should he have mummy's old name? That doesn't work as it is
my family that the tree descends to. He is going to have Daddy's crest as GS found daddy's family name mentioned in the Domesday book so it all wraps up nicely
We then had a chain mail discussion. I offered to knit, but it won't look overly metal, he ended up with the decision of making it from metallic coarse net which I dutifully ordered.
Then he was mightily concerned about which book he was representing. He really wanted to do the Anglo Saxon chronicles but felt that most children in his class would not know what it was and he would have to explain it all the time. So we settled on the Horrible Histories book on the Normans! All of these conversations took place with me and his mum just looking at each other wishing it would end, but it was all so very important to him!
In effect the costume will take little time to make as just tunics, the conversation about it probably took longer
I promise you, I learn more historical facts from this 8 year old than I ever learned in school!
Edit to add the instructional picture I was given
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