Re-enacting
Deane and I both love history. We started taking that love of history further than the average bear shortly after we met. It started innocently enough with dressing up to go Ren Faires and hosting medieval parties. Then we joined the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). Soon, that wasn't enough. We had to form our own troop (St. Sebastian, a 14th Century English Archery Troop) and branch out into several different centuries.
Twenty seven years later, we're still at it.
Our children have grown up dressing up in funny clothes and running off to the 14th or 18th century for the weekend. I re-enacted through both summer pregnancies (I don't actually recommend that) and the kids both attended their first events as newborns. I have never heard my children complain about being bored at an event, not once. Getting Cora to keep a head-covering on is still a challenge, but otherwise they don't complain about the clothes either. When Wolf came over, he joined in the fun and is now hooked as well.
Commitments in the mundane world keep us from participating as much as we used to, as do some of the physical demands. We have expanded even more in the last few years to include Steam Punk in our repertoire, the only "fantasy" re-enacting we do and Deane, Julian and Wolf have started doing WWII stuff as well.
I hope as life continues to change that more opportunities to play history will open up for us and that we can re-capture some of the thrill (some of what we do now has gotten a bit hum-drum and makes us work weary). Perhaps as the children continue to grow, we can pass the organizational torch to them and we can start to come along for the ride instead.
One thing is for sure, I hope my children will pass this on to their children. It has been a wonderful family activity that I wouldn't trade for the world!
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