It's Homecoming Mum Season!

When it’s homecoming season across the nation, only in parts of Texas and Oklahoma is it also homecoming mum season. Some students take homecoming mums just as seriously as the homecoming football game itself.

For the uninitiated, a homecoming mum is an oversized mum corsage decorated with three-foot long streamers in the school colors, bells, charms, banners, little plush animals done up in bows, sparkly letters, even Christmas tree lights.

It is usually worn in the middle of the chest like a breastplate with the streamers flowing down the front of the body almost touching the ankles. It is, in short, a fashion statement.

But homecoming mums are so much more than that. They are a sign that somebody loves you. They’re no longer given only by boyfriends. Mums can come from friends, your mom, dad, aunt, or even a booster boy (a boy-friend who is not your date).

Anybody who's anybody wears one, or two and can

weigh as much as 12 pounds!

Homecoming mums have become a status symbol for many junior high and high school students. Designs change every year. The more original, the better.