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In true New Year’s Eve tradition, my husband and I went to a local restaurant/coffee shop (The Mansion) which was hosting a private party for their regular customers.  This was the first year we were around to go and it was just delightful.  The counters were laden with crackers and cheese, smoked salmon, salad and deli meats and as promised in the invitation an endless supply of cheeseburgers and pigs in a blanket were passed among the guests.  AND the champagne flowed and flowed and flowed.

The invitation indicated it was “Black Tie” and we decided we would definitely dress accordingly.  I wish I had insisted on taking his picture before we left the house because Peter was quite the dandy in his White Tie and Tails.  YES he did wear “tails”; a beautiful custom-made tail coat from 1947 with a white vest and white tie and black patent leather shoes!   I was a little creative in my outfit, donning black pants and black camisole with one of Peter’s white bow ties around my neck and I wore a shawl-collared tuxedo jacket.  When we sat down at our table, there were black Fedora hats for the men and silver and black tiaras for the women as well as horns and noise-makers.  The whole place looked great!

We planned on attending this gala event with our old friend, Cary; he and Peter have been friends for about 40 years!  We arrived first and secured a nice booth in the front room, first glass of champagne in hand.  Shortly after we sat down, I noticed a young woman sitting at a nearby table by herself.  At first I thought perhaps she was waiting for someone to join her but on second thought since she was already eating, it occurred to me she might be alone.  So I suggested to Peter that he ask her to join us – not my usual style and very spontaneous.  And Catherine happily accepted our invitation.  One of the comforting aspects of the evening was  most likely the party-goers would be neighbors of ours, since this is a local diner.

Catherine proved to be an enchanting addition to our table and Peter and Cary enjoyed regaling her with stories.  We soon found out that her parents were expected to arrive any moment and that they lived two doors down from us!  Catherine had a previously made plan to join a friend for the rest of the evening but we soon dissuaded her from that idea – she should stay with us!

Eileen (sp?) and Frank, Catherine’s parents arrived and joined us and it quickly became the more the merrier. The ‘thing” about The Mansion and more specifically Phil and John is that the welcoming atmosphere encourages neighbors to meet and talk with one another.  Before the evening ended, we were sure that we had found neighbors who we would welcome meeting again.  Cary is a singer and entertainer and performs weekly at The Triad theater and what better way to extend the conviviality of the evening by other than making a plan for all of us to attend his show.  The plan is tentative at this point but I  am hoping we can all go in mid-January while my son, Joel is visiting.

A long and winding tale I know, to get to the crux of the story and title of the blog, however, I do believe New Year’ s Eve  is  the best night of the year to ring out the old and ring in the new  with old gold and new silver friends.

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