Christmas 2015

Christmas was absolutely wonderful this year.  We awoke to lots of snow but, since I live two minutes away from my parents, I was able to get there in time to open presents.  Sean set a strict 9:00 am start time because he gets so excited he can't wait much longer than that!  Here is what the tree looked like before we started opening presents.

Santa Claus definitely came!  The white envelopes on the tree contain $50 bills.  My Dad has done this for all of us every year since I can remember.  Here we are opening presents!

Marilyn was the most excited about getting an iron!  Apparently this iron is especially made for quilting!

I got a selfie stick.  I really wanted one and everyone laughed about it but all of my officers seem to have so much fun with them.  I also got an Instax mini camera (which everyone now wants) and a silhouette cutting machine (which I am really excited to play with). However, I'm most excited about getting the Star Wars complete saga on Blu-Ray!  I feel a marathon coming soon!

The best part of Christmas is watching Sean and Tashena opening their presents!  Tashena got lots of clothes and a new phone!  She is pretty much the happiest girl in the universe and spent much of the day texting her friends!

Sean got clothes, a bean bag chair, a case for his 3DS, lots of 3DS games, and the coolest R2-D2 slippers ever!  His big present was a Robosapien robot which entertained all of us for hours!

Every year my Mom makes sweet rolls for breakfast after we open presents.  In the evening we had a delicious dinner and played Shanghai Rummy late into the night (Tashena won!).  It couldn't have been a better day!  We were all very spoiled with presents but the best part was all of us being together and continuing our many Christmas traditions!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Bugs Bunny at the Symphony

Did you wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch the great Warner Bros. cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner when you were a kid?  If so, you have probably heard the works of Wagner, Rossini, Strauss, Smetana, and Liszt without even realizing it because many of those cartoons feature classical music!  I loved Bugs Bunny and, to this day, I can't hear Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries without thinking "Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit" in my head!  Last night's concert at Abravanel Hall was so much fun because all of those fabulous Warner Bros. cartoons were projected on a giant screen above the stage while the Utah Symphony played the accompanying music live.  My favorites were "Rhapsody Rabbit" which featured "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" by Franz Liszt and "What's Opera, Doc?" featuring the aforementioned Die Walkure by Richard Wagner.  The program also featured two new Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons commissioned specifically for this program called "Rabid Rider" and "Coyote Falls" with music by Christopher Lennertz.  These were very different from the classic cartoons and conductor George Daugherty mentioned that a total of ten people worked on the former while hundreds animated the latter!  I think I prefer the classic cartoons!  The orchestra even played the Merrie Melodies "That's All, Folks" credit at the end!  This concert brought back great childhood memories of Saturday mornings and I absolutely loved it!

Note:  There were lots of children in attendance at the concert and I hope this exposure to classical music makes them fans for life!

Ballet West's The Nutcracker

Seeing a performance of The Nutcracker is a cherished holiday tradition for me and I look forward to it all year. It simply wouldn't be Christmas without it.  I saw the beloved classic last night and I think I enjoyed it even more than I usually do! This year marks the 60th Anniversary (I haven't been attending for that long) of William Christensen's brilliant choreography set to the incomparable score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky so there was definitely a degree of nostalgia as I watched all of the familiar scenes. Yet, there was also an unexpected thrill of excitement because I got to see some new interpretations (I am so used to Christopher Ruud and Christiana Bennett performing the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, either individually or together) of some iconic roles.  The Grand Pas de Deux performed by the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier is my favorite moment in the entire ballet (I think Tchaikovsky's music for this scene is the most romantic in the entire classical cannon) and I thought Emily Adams and Rex Tilton danced it beautifully.  It gave me goosebumps!  Even though I have seen this ballet countless times, I still get caught up in the excitement of the party scene as the Christmas tree is unveiled for the children, I marvel at the transformation of the nutcracker into a handsome prince, and I take delight in the various divertissements arranged by the Sugar Plum Fairy for Clara and the prince (especially the Arabian variation and the Russian variation). It was a lovely evening made even more so by a large group of teenagers sitting near me who were absolutely enchanted by it.  If you haven't experienced this holiday tradition for yourself, I highly encourage you to do so.  Go here for tickets.  The Nutcracker runs at Capitol Theatre until Dec. 27.

Note:  This year Ballet West cast Katlyn Addison as the first African-American Sugar Plum Fairy in the organization's history. I was thrilled by this news because my niece is a dancer and she might play the Sugar Plum Fairy some day!  I wish that I could have seen her!

Gingerbread Houses 2015

Every year, usually on the Sunday before Christmas, we make gingerbread houses with Sean and Tashena.  This tradition started the year that Tashena joined our family and we always look forward to it!

Sean usually eats more frosting than he puts on his house!

A goatee often makes an appearance, as well!

Various stages of construction!  We buy kits and then use a hot glue gun to put them together because we never eat them and we like to get to the fun part, which is decorating, as soon as possible!  The kits come with candy but we always buy more!

I think Sean's goal was to cover every inch of his house with candy!  He is so much fun!

Tashena worked very diligently on her house and was the last to finish!  She used the glue gun to attach all of that coconut!

Marilyn with her house.

My house.

Sean with his house.

Tashena with her house.

The whole village.

A few more views.  I love this tradition because I love spending time with Sean and Tashena.  We laughed so hard while making these gingerbread houses and I hope they always remember the fun times we had together!  After making our houses we watched Christmas movies for the rest of the night.  Sean and Tashena have every word memorized to the movie Elf and we thought it was adorable.  Marilyn and I have every word memorized to A Christmas Story and they thought it was annoying!

Note:  Here is Tashena's first gingerbread house!