The Early Years: Party Time! Excellent!

So last week I posted a scan of an old mimeograph of the rules for first grade; these rules indicated that there would be in-school parties for Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day, and I mentioned that I remembered the Halloween parties and the distribution of Valentine’s Day cards from everyone to everyone, but that I didn’t really remember the Christmas parties. Because my folks read the blog—they were, of course, the source of the giant pile of elementary school era documents from which I pull my posts for “The Early Years”—my father sent along a few pictures of some of those long-ago festivities. I don’t know if these are specifically from first grade or not (I’m no good at figuring out how old kids [including my past self] are just by looking at them), but they’re definitely from elementary school, I can tell that much …

First up, we have a picture of me as Abraham Lincoln, giving a new meaning to the term “neckbeard“, along with various classmates who are also in … Well, maybe not costumes, exactly, but at least most of them are wearing hats.

And next, we have a couple of photos from Christmas parties, in which I am getting an early start on my longstanding tradition of avoiding cameras by facing the other direction:

Hey, that big fat guy is wearing the same robe I got for $10 at Burlington*!

* If you’re in need of a cheap robe for your cat to claw to pieces while she’s making muffins in your lap, Santa robes go on deep discount after Christmas, I tell you what.