Iterate through dictionary of file objects and file names

[Julian Yap]

Hi all,
I'm trying to get some ideas on the best way to do this.
In this particular coding snippet, I was thinking of creating a 
dictionary of file objects and file names.  These would be optional 
files that I could open and parse.  At the end, I would easily close off 
the files by iterating through the dictionary.

---< CODE FOLLOWS >---
optionalfiles = {fileAreaCode: "areacode.11", fileBuild: "build.11"}
# Try to see if optional file exists, if so, open.
try:
    for key, optionalFile in optionalFiles.iteritems():
        key = open(optionalFile, "r")
except IOError:
    key = False
...
# Close optionally open files
for key, optionalFile in optionalFiles.iteritems():
    if optionalFile:
        print "Closing: %s" % optionalFile
        key.close()
---< END CODE >---
My questions are:
Is this even possible in a dictionary to have a key of a file object?
If so, how do I initialise an empty file object?  I mean, something 
along the lines of:
fileAreaCode = open("", "r")
If not, any suggestions on achieving openning optional files in a loop? 
 Otherwise I'm stuck with:

---< BEGIN >---
# Optional input files
try:
    fileAreaCode = open("areacode.11", "r")
except:
    fileAreaCode = False
try:
    fileBuild = open("build.11", "r")
except:
    fileBuild = False
...
# Close files
for optionalFile in [fileAreaCode, fileBuild]:
    if optionalFile:
        print "Closing: %s" % str(optionalFile)
        optionalFile.close()
---< END >---
Thanks,
Julian
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