Roosting under the tree

A couple of days ago, the kids were looking at our Christmas tree, spotting ornaments that have become familiar to them and ornaments that bear their own faces from years past.

That got Augie looking deep into the tree, admiring the way he could see lights far inside. And that led to the four of us plus Mali the cat lying under the tree for a view from underneath. Augie kept saying, "Color and light." It looked like this:

When their dad arrived to pick them up from our play date, we looked like this (and then he got under there, too):

We had talked about the fact that we usually stand the tree in a snowbank in the back yard and let birds roost in it while they wait to use the feeders. So Augie decided we were roosting under the tree.

Augie wondered why we had so many lights..."numberless," he called them. Yes, he knew that "numberless" means "too many to count." But then Pa said he knew exactly how many there were. Eight strings of 50 each makes 400. So they agreed that only the ornaments were numberless.

We'll have our tree for another week. Then, if we get more snow or figure out another way to stand the tree in the yard, it will serve as a roosting place for a few months. And then it will be spring!

Dancing our way through Christmas

Our grandkids love to dance. ViMae will tell you she wants to be a ballerina, and she can show you her best moves and her several tutus. She wanted to take classes, but around here you have to be four to enroll. So in the meantime, she twirls and spins and practices raising her leg to there. Augie joins in by grabbing her arm and swinging her around until one or both fall down. Then they laugh and do it again.

This fall Peter and I took them both to some free noontime presentations by the St. Paul City Ballet. The sessions graduated from barre exercises to snippets of a ballet-in-progress, and finally fully costumed excerpts from the company's holiday production. The Enchanted Toy Shop borrows some music from The Nutcracker; Augie recognized it as being from Disney's Fantasia. They love the Nutcracker Suite portion of Fantasia, and Augie can hear two notes of music and tell you exactly what it corresponds to--for example, the dancing mushrooms, the turnips, or his favorite, "the flowers that fall down over a waterfall."

We explained that the music was first written for a ballet, and the kids said they'd like to see it. Cue another great opportunity. A local dance school was presenting a 20-minute version of Act 2 of The Nutcracker at Rosedale Mall on Wednesday evenings before Christmas. We met the kids and their parents for dinner and then found the performance just as it began. The kids made a beeline for chairs up front and watched every step. This was no virtuoso performance, but it was up close and lively, and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it.

A few days later, we watched parts of two new DVDs--Act 2 of the Nutcracker followed by the corresponding segment of Fantasia. They loved both, and they danced around the den the whole time we were watching.

On Christmas morning at their house, The Nutcracker was playing as they opened gifts, and again they danced. Look at that picture of Augie, wearing his elf hat and red pajamas, dancing like the "action elf" he claims to be.

It will be some time before they are old enough to sit through a full-length performance, but a Christmas Nutcracker is definitely in their futures.

We wish you a...

...Merry Christmas! And if Christmas isn't your holiday, have a wonderful weekend!

We'll be with the grandkids and their parents, seeing Christmas through the excitement of children. And that is the best gift we could ask for.

I began Christmas Eve day as I always do: listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College in Cambridge, England. Every year it opens with the pure soprano voice of a young boy singing "Once in Royal David's City," and every year I get chills the instant I hear it. Somewhere deep inside me lives the girl who loved midnight Mass and whose greatest musical performance thrill was playing the organ for the parish men's choir for two years. (Remember, beating Bob Dylan in a talent contest wasn't especially significant until several years later when he became uber-famous.)

The Festival is broadcast around the world by American Public Media and the BBC; you can learn more about it on the APM web site and listen to it until December 31 on the BBC site.

May you, too, encounter something during this holiday that stirs fond memories and deep satisfaction within. And just for good measure, a couple of bonus pix:

Best Flash Mob Ever - Hallelujah Chorus

I've never seen a flash mob in person. I didn't know much about them--mostly associated them with mischief. Well, this one is the opposite of mischief. It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of Shock and Awe. Enjoy.



(If the embedded version doesn't work for you, try this link.

P.S. According to Blogger, this is my 250th post.