Homecoming masks are 2020’s most innovative pandemic accessory. Photo by Shay Mueller.
Making homecoming mums was a decades-long tradition for band parents at Lake Highlands High, with moms and dads working for weeks before the big game to handcraft glittering trinkets and ribbons onto fall flowers. In recent years, band boosters have collected a percentage of profits on orders filled by a local florist.
Like most fun fall activities, homecoming will look different this year. The big dance is canceled and Varsity Revue, the band’s talent show fundraiser, won’t happen either. The football game against Jesuit will go on with just 50% capacity at Wildcat Stadium, and – best of all – the mum tradition will continue.
The Mum Shop, which creates homecoming accessories for schools all over the metroplex, will offer big-as-yo-face silk flowers embellished with all things red and white. They won’t, though, have 2020’s most innovative pandemic accoutrement – the homecoming mask.
Shay Mueller, who’s been selling homecoming mums over the internet from her home in Rusk, Texas, announced a few weeks ago she’d create “fun novelty homecoming masks.” She’s barely slept since.
“Someone…I guess was trying to make fun of them,” Mueller wrote on Facebook. “Instead you have now helped me get orders for these all the way to Florida and Colorado.”
C & C’s Floral Events in the Hurst/Colleyville area said they, too, will bedazzle a mask to celebrate the big game.
“If we get the orders, we will do them,” co-owner Cecilia Valudos told CBS 11. “If that’s what they want, then we will create it.”
LHHS Principal Kerri Jones will permit students to wear mums to school on Oct. 30, the day LHHS plays Jesuit, and mums may be purchased online here. Band mom Leigh Ann Murchison admitted nostalgia for mum-making days, but not for fingers left hot-glued together for weeks.
“We are thrilled the students will be able to enjoy some little piece of normalcy and a time-honored traditional keepsake,” said Murchison.
Homecoming mum by The Mum Shop
Homecoming masks. Photo by Shay Mueller
