Tuxedo New Year

The tuxedos came home all pressed and protected in garment bags. We spoke of how they should be hung up until it was time to dress for dinner the next day. The instant, the INSTANT we got home, the boys all dressed and played "spy" late into the night. Emma, by complete contrast and oblivious to the wild boys, sat at a mirror in her lovely taffeta dress and rearranged her hair. She tried different earrings, necklaces, ribbons, tights, wraps. She moved quietly, slowly, regally and hung her dress carefully for the night.

In the morning, Emma was in the kitchen helping me...and the boys were upstairs playing "spy," again! When we set off for dinner on New Year's Eve, Emma was stylishly, beautifully dressed and accessorized. Harrison, Carter, and Dylan were sweaty and disheveled. They were rumpled and smudged, mis-buttoned and frayed...and deliriously happy to be dressed in formal wear. Despite their messy appearance, they looked very debonair in the low light of a casino dining room...very like...James Bond! We spent midnight on Virginia Street, in Reno's old downtown. We counted down to the New Year as a massive fireworks display exploded over our heads. On our way home, we stepped out of the bitter cold for hot tea, and toasted the New Year with sweet, funny, poignant, innocent hopes and dreams.

On seeing the frazzled appearance of the tuxedos earlier in the evening as we readied for dinner, I had been sorry I hadn't monitored the boys more carefully and held them to the original plan to preserve their clothes. At midnight though, as I watched their faces lit up by fireworks; lit up by the events of a fun and special, memorable New Year, I changed my mind. Childhood is too short to worry about a clean tuxedo!