What are your back-to-school traditions?

When my sister and I were in high school, our parents would give us a clothing allowance for back-to-school shopping. I was a prep and she was artsy, so there were some staples we had to buy separately, but we pooled most of the money for the August sale at Laura Ashley to buy clothes we could both wear. I would take a colorful sweater and pair it with blue jeans, Weejuns, and a hairband. Then my sister would wear it a few days later with black knit pants (very cutting edge in the late '80s) and some heavy, dark shoes. This worked very well for us, and we still wear some of those clothes after all these years!

From Real Simple reader MEG QUINN, via e-mail.