What A Difference A Year Makes …

You may remember a year ago when I went off on a little rant about the High School’s Homecoming dance. If not, you can read that here.

I floated an idea for a “ComingHome” dance as a possibility to a friend who has a leadership position in our church community in Loudoun County after last year’s experience. She was in complete agreement with me that there was a need for an alternative activity for our kids who don’t want to attend the school dances because they’ve gotten so bad.

It’s been a year in the making and I am so happy to write today that this weekend my kids attended the first Mormon Homecoming Dance in our county and they had a BLAST! The dance, which started out as Coming Home, quickly earned the nick name MoHoCo. Kids at school started asking, “Are you going to MoHoCo?”.

We challenged Hannah and Chris to invite some of their school friends who don’t go to our church because we knew they would also have a great time at a dance that was, simply put, a better, cleaner environment than what the school offers. They took us up on the challenge, inviting groups of friends.

It is not an easy task for a girl to come to a dance like this because there was a dress standard that was enforced. Dresses had to go to the knee and cover the back and shoulders. Does that sound like an old fashioned standard to you? Not to me! It was completely refreshing to see so many girls in dresses that were age appropriate. I am so sick of seeing teenaged cleavage and thighs! I looked at these girls and couldn’t help but think how beautiful they were, not because they were showing off their bodies, but because we could see their true beauty! It was refreshing.

One of the friends Hannah invited was our neighbor Alex. These two have been buddies since Kindergarten. He showed up completely dapper in a suit and bow tie. It was AWESOME! We had fun shooting some silly pictures in front of our house before heading over to our Bishop’s house where I helped host a dinner for thirty-five kids before the dance.

Chris took a darling girl from the Cross Country team to the dance. I was so impressed when her mom called us to double check on the dress standard. She had found one dress, but it didn’t meet the standard, so she found another one which was really beautiful. Chris has taught himself to hand tie a bow tie, and insisted on finding one to match her dress. Pretty cute, that kid of mine.

He also invited two other friends from the Cross Country team. None of these kids go to our church. All of them had a fantastic time at the dance and said it was better than any school dance. Chris felt an especially great amount of pride since he was in charge of the music for the dance. He has worked for weeks to find music that is good to dance to and also has clean lyrics. Do you have any idea how hard that is to do? Several people told the DJ that it was the best music they’d heard at a dance (church or otherwise) in a long time.

There were about two hundred kids at the dance. I think next year it will be held in a bigger venue and more kids will come because they are going to hear how great it was from the kids that went this year. I am so relieved that my kids have a place to go with their friends for Homecoming and that they never have to step foot in a school dance again.

Yay for Mormon Homecoming! Yay for kids who have high standards! And yay that last week is over because it was one of the busiest and most stressful I have had in a long, long time.