The Words to this popular Christmas song, sum up Christmas 2010 for me:
Blue Christmas by Jay Johnson & Billy Hayes
“I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if you’re not here with me
And when the blue snowflakes start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doing alright with your Christmas of white
But I’ll have a blue Christmas”
My Christmas did turn out white, which made it even bluer as after I recovered from the stomach flu, I had to find a way to get to California for THE trip of 2010!
At our house, we put up a few decorations here and there. Usually we have 3 trees, but somehow, I was talked into getting rid of two of them when we put everything away last year! What? We’ve gotten by, though I miss those trees.
I love my stockings that I cross-stitched AND constructed with a little help from you-know-who, and our little collection of Santas, which haven’t been put out for a few years because of little crazy hands.
I liked when I came in one afternoon and found all the Santas and all the characters and animals from two nativity sets regarding the Baby Jesus.
The girls got SO excited about every single ornament, and it was such a great moment, because when they were younger it was setting a pattern and going through the motions, and now it has meaning and sparks glee. Just when I feel a little overwhelmed by all the decorating, they propel it forward with their committed enthusiasm!
We have also been enjoying our Christmas books. I wrap them all up, and they each get to unwrap one every night until they are all unwrapped. Mysteriously, I wrapped one that had nothing to do with Christmas, but rather a family of cats on a summer night, so that was a moment of weariness, but also pretty hilarious….we kept looking and looking for the Baby Jesus Hook, not there.
For those of you just tuning in to the blog, I have a daughter named Lolly who can be equally raunchy as she is enchanting. The most fun (sarcarsm) times are when she bounces back and forth between them, she’s a moody little thing (yes, we know where she gets it from). : )
The Raunchy Lolly flares up when it’s time to get ready and go somewhere important. She senses a shift of energy from calm and balanced to probably ME…I’m sprucing up, getting dressed, paying attention to my face and my clothes (and not her), and so she starts acting out. It’s a formula that does not change, but I am going to try to get better at adding a different ingredient so that we avoid Raunchy Lolly.
This particular evening she started having a fit about two pieces of her outfit: her tights and her bow belt. Now, I did not spring this outfit on her. She tried it on-a few different versions, and also wore the tights and the dress just the day before for her flute concert, so I prepared her well for the moment when she would wear it for real. I tried several responses:
~Don’t do this. I let you wear tons of different outfits that you pick out every day, all the time, I am picking it out when it’s a performance.
~You look like a present-it’s a bow! A present! It’s Christmas! get it?
~Just think of it as a costume.
~You can take it off as SOON as you’re done singing.
~Listen lady, we are getting paid to perform (lie), and remember when you do a little job the rules are that you wear whatever the people want you to wear? WELL, the girl who is in charge of this and asked us to sing, emailed me to tell me specifically that she wanted you to wear those shoes, those tights, that dress, sweater and belt, (lie) and so because we are getting paid to do a job (lie), we are professional, and we do what the boss says.
That seemed to shut her up.
It was seriously so stressful, and then as soon as we were in the cab she was la-la-la Lolly again.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……..
Luckily I’ve had lots of practice with this, so I shook it off.
Once we got to the concert everything seemed to go fine. The girls and I regrouped during the number before ours. I was in the foyer straightening belts, putting hair behind ears and fixing headbands, when this little girl, who was probably around 11 years old, and looked like an older version of Phoebe, came walking over to Lolly and said all spunky and authoritative-like:
“Do you know what I would do with this outfit you’re wearing? First, I would take the sweater and put it on the OUTSIDE of the bow….”
I interrupted her just then saying who-knows-what, but my look and my tone seemed to get her out of the picture because she quickly retreated. I didn’t have time to explain the Raunchy-Lolly-Getting-Dressed-Situation from earlier that evening, and I was trying to concentrate on getting ready to perform.
And perform we did, Do You Hear What I Hear? Arranged by John Andrew Tarbet:
Believe it or not, we did have a soundcheck, in which my microphone was indeed plugged in. I feel bad Phoebz mic wasn’t hot enough…but it was a down-to-the-minute production with some details falling through the cracks…like, plugged in microphones. ; )
I’m always pleased to perform with my girls, and so glad the pressure of instrument-playing and pleasing teachers was OUT of the mix this night. I hope that performing together is a tradition that never fades away for us.
It’s FREE and the girls and I are going to *hopefully* look and sound like a million bucks! Our rehearsal went really well and I am sure Lolly will bring an antic or two to the table.
December 4th at 6:30 pm at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: 125 Columbus Avenue New York, NY, 3rd Floor.
We will be singing this, only it will be 2 years more mature, which, for this particular crowd, makes a big difference! :
Lolly has been pointing to the advertisements for Radio City Christmas Spectacular and begging to go see that movie.
I really wanted to take the kids to see ELF, but the reviews were not so hot for the price of my required orchestra seating.
Over Thanksgiving I passed a gal on the street wearing a cardboard sign and handing out flyers for the Rockettes and I noticed it had a special price if you used promotion code STREET. I scored some orchestra seats for a great price.
This week on Tuesday I took the kids out of class early and surprised them with tickets to the show!
It was the exact same show we saw 3 years ago, but it was still amazing, and as each scene began, I was like; oh yeah! I love that one! I forgot about that one! AND the nativity at the end—always striking.
Before the show started we headed down to the grand lounge to get their kids pack (who knew a kids pack ticket was 15 bucks less than mine AND came with a little gift? another score), and we saw Santa in a sleigh. Lolly marched right over to line up to see Santa and get her pic taken. As she did, the camera died and the manager came over and promised us a free photo if we came back after the show.
I NEVER buy the photo, so I thought, we ought to take advantage of her generosity. After collecting all the very long tinsel strips that the Rockettes shoot out of guns during one of the numbers, strewn around the large theatre, that all the other audience members sensibly regarded as trash, we headed down and tried take 2 with Santa.
I noticed that the photographer took 2 photos and during the second one, Santa opened his mouth in this really weird way. I then plotted my photo. The first one: nice, model family smile, 2nd, make it a little crazy to go with Crazy Santa! (I realize I don’t look too crazy, I just raised my eyebrows and leaned in, but it felt crazier in the moment!)
We saw our print-outs. The manager showed us both and offered me one for free and the second for 10 bucks. I was torn because the first one was great of all of us, but the second one was CRAZY, so of course I picked CRAZY.
When we got home, I opened up the bag and saw she had gifted us with both. Ah….so nice. (please excuse the poor blurry scans):
1. Once upon a time, on a cold Christmas Eve night in the suburbs of Chicago, a family rode in a trolley all over town to see the Christmas lights adorning suburban homes. As the trolley was backing up out of the circle, Kristy and Jason shared a moment in song.
2. Once upon a time, a little girl in the 3rd grade was told there would be a Christmas concert at her school. One of the songs that would be performed was Suzy Snowflake. Upon hearing this news, she wanted to be Suzy Snowflake very much. It was decided that a tall girl with very blond hair cut in a bowl cut, whose name she can’t remember, was chosen to be Suzy Snowflake. And 8 or 10 of the coolest, most popular girls were chosen to be her snowflake entourage. The girls all wore beautiful and fancy white snowflakey outfits from head to toe. They looked beautiful. Her costume was a silver bell made out of paper. She will never forget her humiliation.
22 years later, she decided to finally fulfill her dream of being SUZY Snowflake and recruited a few cool girls to be her snowflake entourage. All costumes were procured from Grammy’s costume closet, and the recording of Suzy was by Rosemary Clooney in the not-so-good years….oh my her voice sounds so unstable and gravelly, but I love her work at the beginning of her career.
