We are aware, here in the Manolosphere, that there are those who do not love ballet. We feel sorry for them, and we assume that they were traumatized in a horrible pointe shoe accident as toddlers. We seek, therefore, to reintroduce them to this finest of all athletic arts one bunny hop at a time.

We will start them off on The Nutcracker.

Not the story; if you actually read E.T.A. Hoffman you quickly see that he was a nutbar of the very nuttiest type. We start them off right with the ballet itself.

Now, this ballet, it has many things going for it. It has magic. It has a mysterious sugar daddy. It has a prince. It has soldiers and cossacks and battles and rats. And, if it’s the Pacific Northwest Ballet version, it has sets designed by Maurice Sendak and special effects whipped up by Boeing engineers in their spare time (presumably making airplanes stay up is dull relative to making Christmas trees explode).

Oh, and it has dancing, too.

But, ballet fan though I may be, I maintain that the best part of the Nutcracker is the outfits.

Not those outfits.

These ones.

A full third of my motivation for going to this particular ballet is the chance to see all the cute little kids dressed up and looking good; given the fact that ballets are rarely performed adjacent to food or Play-Doh, it’s also the one chance they have to STAY looking good for several hours. Not a few parents cram the photo with Santa into this day; although their children may be overwrought and unhinged by such a jam-packed day, they do look fabulous, and that’s what counts when Aunt Fran is comparing your brood to her sister’s, eh?

But while there are a billion attractive options for girls formal dresses, what have we got for little boys?

Still.

Equal rights, my friends, include the right to be equally fabulous, and I’m afraid this just doesn’t do it for me, velvet though it may be. Go ahead, search: Amazon doesn’t even have a category for boy’s formal wear. I suppose the powers that be simply assume that your boys will be happy with a band tee, a mackinaw, and some overalls for their special occasions. Or variations on the sailor suit, which really hasn’t been the same since Tom of Finland. Really, there’s a huge gap where boy’s formal wear could be; if you trawl through “boy’s suits and sport coats” on Amazon you end up looking at orange pj sets and some hip-hop track suits with satin trim. It’s enough to give one the vapours, whatever they are.

Now, the vest thing I understand. Try wrestling a willful five-year-old into the sausage-casing sleeves of a suit jacket and tell me that vests aren’t a good thing. Indeed, I’m going out on a limb here and saying that, for small boys, vests are an acceptable substitute for suit jackets. This special exemption ends when the child is old enough to learn cursive and/or l33t. In the meantime, may we suggest:

Jennifer, mija, what are these rumors I am hearing?  Yes, I know that you are actually two years older than me, but I am feeling maternal towards you, my dear, shhhh.  For it is being said that you are “horrified” at how much weight you have gained with your pregnancy, and that you will purposely stay out of the public eye until after your baby/babies are born. 

Que lastima, for a pregnant woman should rejoice in the changes her body experiences during such a joyous time.

And you may reply, “But Glinda, how is a former muy caliente woman to rejoice in her cankles and sudden inability to locate her jawline?”

Jenny who feels bigger than an entire block, while these changes may difficult for you to look at in the mirror, you must simply resign yourself to the fact that despite your fabulous wealth and talent, your body is going to do what it wants to do during your pregnancy.  And if that means puffs where there weren’t puffs before, then so be it.   You have never been a celebrity who worshipped with the cult of super-thin, so I’m having a hard time believing that you cannot embrace your enhanced curves. 

But being pregnant shouldn’t stop you from channeling your well-documented inner diva! Come on now, this fly girl can’t turn into a wallflower! Step out, look super fantastico, and show them how it’s done!