HoCo '26

If the acronyms TGIF or TRL mean anything to you, I hate to be the one to tell you but you're probably already behind on your child's HSA: Homecoming Savings Account. 

If you went to homecoming at the same time as Joey and Pacey, your homecoming experience was probably similar to mine: go to the mall and hit up Parisian or Macys or Sears and pull an armload of long dresses off the rack. Absolutely destroy the fitting room with mounds of taffeta, ruffles, and lace. Once you decide on the dress, head to the food court for some sustenance in the form of some Auntie Anne's pretzel bits and a Smoothie King, or a slice of Sabbarro and TCBY. Once your sodium levels are negatively impacting your blood pressure, you head off to Payless to see if they have shoes you'll be able to dye to match your dress. 

The day of homecoming, you maybe have a friend or two come over and you guys get dressed together, curl one another's hair, maybe stand still long enough for someone to snap a picture on their disposable Kodak, and head off to your school gym. To add to the ambiance, Student Body Council members have switched off some of the fluorescent lights, so that the stacked bleachers are in shadows but the scuff marks on the floor are still discernable. Some sad school-colored balloons tumble around the feet of the kids loitering on the edges of the rooms and between the feet of the dancers, the boys and girls making sure to leave room for the Holy Spirit when K-Ci and JoJo comes on. A couple hours later, you and the friends you came with either head to Checkers for milkshake and fries, or go back to your house and turn on a movie while you dissect what everyone was wearing.  

As a student, homecoming was sweet, simple, special; as a parent, it has been exhausting, exasperating, expensive.

It starts with the dress hunt. Now, I admit we make this part harder than it needs to be. We could order one of any number of dresses off of Amazon but our family has a pretty firm "your ass can't hang out of the back of your dress" policy, so that automatically takes away 97% of dresses being sold as "homecoming" dresses. Apparently, sometime between Felicity finding herself in New York and today, dress designers really embraced the "less is more" adage and now create three dresses from the fabric they used to use for one.  

By some miracle, my eldest found a dress she liked online. I took her measurements carefully (measure twice, order once) and felt confident it would meet our length requirements ("longer than your Nike Pros") so I ordered it six weeks ago. Although not an Amazon special, it did come with a tracker which let me know when it left the factory in Guangdong. We followed it's progress and rejoiced when the cargo ship it was on landed at the Port of Los Angeles. From the time I ordered the dress to the time it arrives was 34 days. Suffice it to day, not really the same experience as trying on a dress and seeing yourself in a fitting room mirror. I was a little sad she didn't get to have that experience, so for my other daughter (who doesn't hat shopping the way her sister does), I drove her, my friend and her daughter to the nearest mall (1.5 hours away) to dress shop. 

Because we hadn't gotten to the mall as early as I had anticipated, we made a beeline to the food court. I was happy to see that Sabbarro was still an option, but went for the Bao kiosk instead (when you live a town as small as ours, you take “exotic” cuisine where you can).  The girls had been talking about this store called Windsor where a lot of their friends had found dresses so after lunch, we walked in that store. Fifteen seconds later, we walked out. I'm not sure if it was the line of girls curving around the store waiting to into one of the three fitting rooms, the blaring music, the fact that the store was covered wall to wall in cheap strips of fabric that'd have Vivian Ward blushing, or some combination thereof, but we all walked out without having to say a word. 

We had better luck at Macys and JC Penny. While there, I actually found another dress I thought would look good on my oldest daughter. At the time, the dress we'd ordered was bobbing in a shipping container somewhere in the Pacific so I felt good about the fact that, were there a disruption in the line, she'd still have a dress she'd feel beautiful in. We left the mall that day with three dresses for my other daughter....ya know, as I type this I feel like maybe I should also blame living in BFE as a reason my kids need an HSA--it's nearly impossible to return anything and nowadays, it's almost cheaper to keep a $100 dress than drive my SUV 3 hours roundtrip to return it. 

But say you live in an actual town or city and you only buy one dress per kid. This is still not their parents' homecoming. 

I was at a dinner recently and a mom there who has a daughter my daughter's age was talking about her daughter's plans for homecoming. The mom was telling me about catering dinner for the group of fifteen year old's she was hosting and, I shit you not, the idea of purchasing table linens in the high school's colors was brought up. Now, I feel like I am a solid B+ mom. I try to show up for these guys and help them feel seen and loved and supported, but I draw the line at table linens. There was also talk of going to the nearby vineyard and having pictures taken during golden hour by a professional photographer. As I'm listening to her describe this production, I am relieved that our girls have decided to keep it lowkey and just have a couple friends over...but then just a few days later my eldest goes and ruins my peace by informing me that she was joining the rehearsal dinner her friend was hosting.

Which is how I wound up at Fred Meyers this evening, wandering aimlessly around the floral department. Because evidently florals are now a key component of homecoming. And no, I'm not talking about the classic corsage and buttoner--I'm talking full bouquet. WHAT DO THEY NEED WITH A BOUQUET?! Is this just for the face-in-flowers picture? Are they gonna use them as bats during a pungent, pre-dance game of wiffle ball? I know they won't be toting them to the school so WHY are there now flowers? The selection is pretty picked over at this point since the other, better moms in town have already gotten their daughter’s bouquets. I've never been so thankful that one of our girls favorite flowers is carnations. Still, $60 later and I know my Saturday morning will be spent sitting in the cold garage floor, cobbling together a couple grocery store bouquets. 

And look, all of that is just the pregame. I have no idea what goes on in the actual dance, but in this era of TokTok and going viral, I’d imagine it’s far more complicated than it needs to be, too. Regardless, I'm going to end this here so that you can quit reading and start working the side hustle you're gonna need in order to fund next year's homecoming.