The Ritual of Homecoming and the Sacred Mum

“The Ritual of Homecoming and the Sacred Mum” is an integral chapter in The Handbook of Texas Traditions. (Other chapters include “Why Your In-N-Out Argument is Invalid,” “I Told You the Lord Hates Bare Legs; Go Back Inside and Find Your Pantyhose,” and “Actually, Man Can Live on Dr. Pepper and Breakfast Tacos Alone.”)

Like it or not, these traditions have stood the test of time and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“The tradition of Homecoming and the Sacred Mum cares not if your high school is urban or rural, big or small, as it spreads its love to one and all,” now reads my lower-back tattoo.

Homecoming is more than just an excellent book by Cynthia Voight. It unites students, teachers, parents, and communities in believing their self-worth and emotional wellbeing depend upon their school’s performance in a football game and the largesse of a balloon arch in the district gymnasium.

It is everything.

For the uninitiated, the mum takes its name from a chrysanthemum flower attached to cardboard backing and decorated with long ribbons and various gewgaws. Mums are generally worn to school by girls the day of the homecoming game, while boys wear garters—armbands featuring a tamer version of the mum with shorter ribbons. Mums may be worn to the game as well but are not worn to the actual homecoming dance.

The mum is school spirit in tangible form. It is the physical embodiment of pride and an expenditure of mental energy focused on an opponent hearing, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, we hope you bust your britches when you jam with us,” and then actually busting his pants open.

Homecoming and the Sacred Mum have evolved over the decades. Despite the NCAA recognizing the University of Missouri as the originator of homecoming in 1911, which is obviously a load of bullhonkey, the tradition is also documented as first starting on the campuses of Baylor and Southwestern University in 1909, with mums emerging first in corsages and later in their current mum-form. Fall is not only football season, it is prime time for the chrysanthemum and likely why it became the go-to flower.

Mums began as simple accessories. A single flower with a few ribbons cost as little as a few dollars in the 1960s. The 1970s, 80s, and 90s saw mums begin to grow in size and complexity, including more and longer ribbons and the addition of trinkets like bells, whistles, plastic charms, and miniature stuffed animals. Several decades later, mums have developed into $400 marvels of engineering magically incorporating LED lights, music, and full-sized stuffed animals requiring neck and shoulder harnesses to hold them up. There are over-the-shoulder and sandwich board mums for a front-to-back display, and one website tells of a girl who had an AIRHORN attached to her mum.

There is no doubt that mums inspire as much anxiety as creativity, and the tradition is not without its pitfalls. Because high school can be a cesspit of inequity and injustice, mums may be seen as symbols of popularity (she who has the most glorious mums wins the spoils and whatnot). For some, the enormity and complexity of a mum is seen as a reflection of the amount of love and respect a boy has for a girl or a parent has for her child. Though I believe this is reading way too much into a bunch of flowers stapled to cardboard, I will have no qualms about giving my daughter a brown carnation with a single strand of dental floss hanging from it if she turns into a raging dillhole.

Sure, it can all seem a bit ridiculous, and the internet is riddled with articles belittling the mum tradition and those who enjoy it, but let’s be honest: the world is a terrible place right now. If people are deriving happiness from focusing on a high school football game and making mums, let them have it. Nobody wants to hear your rude opinions on Texas traditions, Janice from Delaware, so shut your pie-hole (and bless your heart, ma’am).

Homecoming mums don’t even have to be all about school spirit; they can reflect your personal interests. My friend once had a Nine Inch Nails mum.

For those of us in high school prior to the turn of the century, our ritual of Homecoming and the Sacred Mum looked a little different than today. Take a moment to hop in your time machine (hopefully a Pontiac Firebird or Mazda RX-7) and relive it with me.

Turn-of-the-Century Official Rules of the Sacred Mum:

1. If you are a child needing a mum to give to your best friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, homecoming date, debate club partner, or dance team little sis, wait to tell your mom until 7 P.M. the night before you need it. Risk your life racing with her to Michael’s before it closes at 8 P.M. Grab a cowbell. Grab two cowbells. Grab all the cowbells. And a whistle. Plus five jingle bells. And a miniature teddy bear. Put the teddy bear back. Realize there are no more plastic footballs or charms with your school letters. Go back and get the teddy bear. Fight with a lady over the last of the glitter sticker letters and ribbons. Wait in the check-out line for 30 minutes past closing with all the other panicked kids and angry parents. Realize you spent $75 on $3 worth of plastic and tin.
2. Drive immediately to the grocery store. Buy the sagging mum missing several petals because there is no way you are buying a silk mum. Silk mums are only used to replace the dead mum once homecoming is over and the mum is tacked on a bulletin board or packed into a hope chest for posterity.
3. Stay up late assembling the mum or make your mom do it.
4. Wake up in the morning and pin it to the paper on a hanger from the dry cleaners to bring to school.
5. Give it to its recipient who will put no fewer than three holes in her shirt and bra trying to re-pin it throughout the day and be forced to tape the bells into silence to stop bothering her economics teacher.
6. If you are a boy who waited until the last minute, your mom will make you swear that next year you’ll get your mum a day ahead of time to honor the sacred practice of the Mum Exchange Ceremony whereby a roll of film is committed to photographing the gifting of the mum (not to be confused with the second and third rolls of film committed to documenting pre-dance photos in someone’s backyard, in front of a fireplace mantle, or on a staircase).

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve only got ten years to memorize this ribbon chart.

Need more info on Homecoming and the Sacred Mum?

• Inside the Weird Texas Tradition of Enormous Homecoming Corsages
• What’s the Deal With Those Ridonkulously Huge Texas Homecoming Mums?
• History of Mums
• The Weird World of Homecoming Mums Explored
• Photographer Nancy Newberry’s Mum Portraits
• Everything You Need to Know About Homecoming Mums