December 31, 2004 - Friday
Most "First Night" celebrations happen in big cities. Boston had the original one almost thirty years ago and has actually licensed the "First Night" phrase to other cities and towns all over the country, like Worcester, Pittsburgh, Spokane, Monterey, and many more. For some reason the nearby town of Groton requested and was granted such a license many years ago and has had its own festival several times, including the first year we were in the area, although not since. But 2005 will be Groton's 350th anniversary and they wanted to start it with a bang, literally, and revived the Groton First Night arts and cultural festival. The big finale and the big attraction was a fireworks display at (talk about family-oriented) 7:00 pm. But, hey, that's perfect for us and both Harry (it was his second time seeing fireworks and, not surprisingly, he was a lot less introspective about them this time) and Jeremy both loved them, Jeremy a little less so because he's less efficient covering his hears than Harry.

Before the fireworks, there was an afternoon full of cultural events and performances and we went to four: a magician, a drum ensemble, Irish dance, and a juggler. I would have loved to have seen the classical guitarists, and maybe the brass quartet, but that probably would have been pushing it for the boys. On the other hand, they were both wonderfully behaved, even interested and intrigued by all four performances we did see. Both said the magician was the best.

A colleague of mine with two somehwat older children seems to remember his kids starting to ask to stay up until midnight somewhere between 5-7 years of age. That didn't happen yet with Harry, although he was very aware that when he woke up it would be 2005, and maybe (just maybe) we headed off any interest he might have had by suggesting a "sleep over" in Jeremy's room. Both using their sleeping bags, Harry slept in Jeremy's bed and Jeremy moved to the day bed (crib with the front off) that's still set up in his room. I figured Harry would jump at the idea, and he did, but I made sure to ask Jeremy a couple of days ago because he likes his sleep and might have been apprehensive. As it turned out, he was not. They went right to bed at the usual time and talked for about a half an hour before we starting hearing footsteps. It was Harry and after I told them that talking was fine, but getting up and playing was not, they both seemed to go right to sleep.


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