Do Homecoming Mums exist anywhere other than Texas?
Yes.
“I grew up in Alabama in the ’80s,” a Texas mom told me, “where homecoming corsages made of live chrysanthemum flowers used to be a long-standing tradition. They’ve since faded away. My sister still lives there, and she tells me mums are back, but now they’re Texas-style.”
According to the National Chrysanthemum Society, during much of the mid-twentieth century, chrysanthemums were the largest commercially produced flower in the United States. They organization itself credited this to the nationwide popularity of live “mums” as the preferred flower for homecoming corsages.
Then, as the secret sauce in Texas worked its magic so that silk mums overcame live ones as the first-choice homecoming flower for Texans, the entire tradition started waning in the other 49 states.
My own family confirms this. I have family members who live in Connecticut, Washington, New York, Michigan, Hawaii, Florida, and Canada. Except for my sister in Florida and my parents (who grew up in Michigan during the mum hey-day), none of my relatives had even heard of chrysanthemums as a traditional homecoming corsage flower, let alone the concept of a Texas-sized mum, until I told them about it.
Important side note: The reason my relatives didn’t know about the live-flower tradition wasn’t necessarily because it didn’t exist. Instead, I think this shows how utterly perfunctory the tradition was, when the mum was a corsage like any other corsage in that it was almost always discarded when the flower died.
What’s Old is New Again
Mum from Santa Teresa High School in New Mexico. Source: Pinterest
It was Aristotle who coined the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum,” and like an invasive species, Texas mums seem to be seizing an opportunity.
How? As always, it’s complicated. Sure, the border-free reach of social media helps fertilize this trend. But as in most things, the real influence is more grass-roots: enthusiastic Texas transplants and professional mum-makers.
“While most of my customers live in our area, I’ve shipped mums to people all over the world,” a mum-maker from Frisco, TX told me. “I’ve sent mums to Oklahoma, Louisiana, and China. Mums are big in New Mexico. I’ve sent mums to military families stationed abroad. I’ve sent mums to moms who want to introduce a new tradition at their kid’s school; moms who want their kids to stand out; and moms who don’t want their kids to miss out on the fun just because the family lives somewhere other than Texas.”
A particularly fun fact is the locals don’t often recognize that these modern-day mums grew from the same family tree as the one their great-grandfathers gave to their high school sweethearts. But then again, a lot of Texas kids don’t know that either.
Eye-witness sightings of Texas-style mums. Have you seen them elsewhere? Leave your sightings in the comments!
The Texas mom confirmed this, at least for her Alabama hometown. “It was hilarious to hear my niece explain this ‘new thing’ that was happening in her school.”
