Family Traditions - Making a guy

When I was a kid I remember how much fun my brother and I had making guys for Guy Fawkes (Bonfire Night).  At least one year our city's council had a competition, which we won the joint entry section.  Our prize was to see our guy burned on one of the city's bonfires.

I wanted to share this tradition with Luath so we made a guy together.

First we selected some of Luath old clothes - a t-shirt, dungarees and a hooded top. Then from her current clothes a pair of boots,  gloves and a hat. For his head we used a small football and a pillowcase.

We attached the boots to the dungarees using elastic bands and then started to stuff newspaper into the legs.  We stuffed the t-shirt next and placed this into the dungarees.  The football was covered with the pillowcase and put into the hood of the hooded top.  We then stuffed the tails of the pillowcase inside the t-shirt and put the hooded top on over the t-shirt.  His head is a bit heavy but it is more robust than a balloon and we didn't have enough newspaper to stuff a head too.  We stuffed the arms and added gloves and a hat.

 

Luath then helped me draw a face on the guy.  I asked her what the guy's name was and she told me "Owl".

 


Here he is in his all his glory.

 Luath enjoyed helping me but even more than that she had a lot of fun with him.  Actually she played with him so much I had to sew his top to his trousers to make him a little more sturdy.

 Some of his adventures so far have been riding on her scooter, quite often being used as a crash test dummy.

and having a check up.

He enjoyed a relaxing afternoon watching football with daddy.

Daddy asked her if Owl was going to go on the bonfire and Luath's reply was "No, not yet".  We have no plans to burn the guy this year, not quite sure how Luath would feel about that anyway.  I hope making a guy becomes a yearly family tradition for us.

Shared with Tuesday tots
(Luath is 21 months)