MARK C. PSORAS/For the Daily News
Peter DiMatteo Jr., of the Adelphia Fancy Club, works in the garage of his home in Wilmington.
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Mummers + 2
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"There's heat here," he explained when the Daily News visited last week.
In the garage, the DiMatteo clan and some friends were laboring to build the elaborate backpieces that carry the trademark Mummer plumage, using staple guns to attach showy bengaline fabric to the frames and glue guns to secure lengths of sequined trim.
"Everything here is brand new because we didn't have anything to begin with," the younger Peter DiMatteo explained. "It's fun - we all just want to have fun - but it's a lot of hard work."
In the basement of Peter's house on Adelphia Avenue, his mother and his wife, Faithe, have been spending nights and weekends across from each other at a pair of sewing machines, churning out costumes.
Upstairs from the costume shop, in the cozy DiMatteo living room, Faithe pointed to the hard, cold evidence of the toll that Mummery can take. In the prelude to the Jan. 1 parade, Christmas had gotten short shrift, and the holiday décor was meager: a small tree and a row of stockings hung from the mantle.
"A little bit of Christmas - that's all you get," said Faithe. "The rest is New Year's. This is cram time for us." *
