Harvest Festival

In the UK at Harvest Festival children bring tins of food, and dry food, to school. The school collects all the tins of beans and bags of rice and so on, and puts them into food parcels. Then the kids go out and deliver those boxes to local people who will appreciate them, like old people.

At least, that's how it was when I was a kid. I don't think it's very different now except I'm guessing they probably don't send unattended children into strangers' homes anymore. Still, it's about gathering in the fruits of the harvest and sharing them with the community.

Today we went to a Harvest Festival at Lady P's school. I was confused. This is what went on:

Lady P dressed as a pumpkin, playing 'Honey Drop' in return for a plastic spider prize

A spider's web dance party

There was a pumpkin patch and place to decorate pumpkins. Lots of little fairground style games. A popcorn machine and a pizza lunch. A bounce house. And absolutely no harvesting or giving to the poor going on at all.

So I learned a couple of things today. Harvest Festival is what the Montessori school cunningly call their Halloween party, presumably because someone devout once complained about celebrating a pagan festival. Nice job Montessori, you almost had me fooled.

The other thing I learned is that the Halloween Party Harvest Festival is my opportunity to demonstrate what a cool, creative, firm bodied mother I am by dressing up as a banana, a Dr Seuss character, Princess Leia, or a cat. There were a lot of fun/ foxy costumes on display at 10.30am in the Montessori playground today. I did not seize that opportunity, choosing instead to dress like someone who skived off work for 45 minutes and was in a hurry to get back to it. Damn those Manhattan Beach mums with all that time on their skinny hands!

Maybe now I understand what's really going on here I'll do better next year.