Purim Carnaval, Dressing Up

Jonathan is old enough to actually enjoy the idea of dressing up in the season of Carnival which also corresponds to the Jewish Purim holiday. He is also big enough to choose his costume; variety however makes for a jumpy (ha ha) decision…

With Purim coming up, Jonathan was permitted to dress himself up in kindergarten for a whole week with silly hats, fun accessories and costumes. This meant he had lots of fun with the whole idea of dressing up, but also that he could not be expected to be able to choose a costume ahead of time. Variety can be confusing.

As he is also relatively tall, the costumes for toddlers will not do, this means the prices are becoming considerable. I therefore decided to learn from last year’s mistake and buy the costume at the latest moment possible. Last year I bought a clown costume and a week before the party he asked for a rabbit. And so I paid for two costumes. Luckily the clown was reduced and Jonathan was still small enough for toddler sizes. This year I started asking about the costume 3 weeks before the party, so the theme can “cook” a bit in his head. But I had no intention of buying early, as I was convinced he would change his mind many times. Jonathan surprised me by remaining constant, he repeatedly mentioned a lion or a bear. I asked him if the bear would be as panda and he got fixed on the panda bear and stayed with it for two whole weeks.

So I purchased a toddler panda costume (as the bear was not available in larger sizes) and the split it into two parts and added fabric so that I created a panda bear suit for a taller boy. Jonathan was very happy to receive the costume and a whole week before the party in the kindergarten, which was to be the high point of the Purim festival; he dressed up in the panda daily. There were also the clown costume and rabbit from last year, which were also split up and enlarged, and he dressed in them too at home. Variety seemed to be successful, providing him with fun for a whole week of dressing up at home. The Panda however was the most popular. I was hopeful till the very last, that he would remain constant to his request. But on the day of the party, the boy insisted on wearing the Rabbit from last year. The only condolence I could have was that the pictures taken last year of Jonathan in the Rabbit costume were not really very nice, and that this year I could hope for better pictures because the boy has finally started to cooperate with the camera.

And so, Jonathan had particular fun with the tail on the pants which he showed me, posing for the camera with his butt stuck out. We also both put rabbit ears on our head and made some self portrait pictures using the bathroom mirror. Even in kindergarten we had the photographer take a picture of us together. Even Jonathan’s daddy has a cool picture with the white rabbit – Jonathan the rabbit kissing daddy on the lips is just too cute!