White Christmas

 

Merry Christmas Eve!

After an Advent season of expectant waiting and preparation (daily devotionals, Advent Jesse Tree, nightly family rosary prayer, weekly adoration), the time has come to celebrate the Nativity of Christ at Christmas.  It's not easy to slow down, our family is always busy, but Advent is a precious season.  We do our best (and a bout of RSV going through the family helped us slow down). We are ready to celebrate.  We are ready to decorate our tree and enjoy our lights and Christmas music and movies until the Epiphany of the Lord on January 8th.  

We are thankful for the blessing of snow for this Christmas weekend.  The littles even braved the below freezing temperature to play in this gift.  We had hoped for a White Christmas!

Nutcracker 2022

The two-act Nutcracker Ballet is a holiday tradition, set to Tchaikovsky's famous score and dating back to the late 1800's, it's been danced by countless ballet companies around the world.  We are so pleased our four dancers can participate in this tradition this year with our local ballet company.  This is the second year these girls have been able to dance the Nutcracker in Ohio - this year they had 4 performances.  We are so proud of our girls!

*Maegli and Hiwot had the opportunity to dance as polichinelles in The Nutcracker with the Bristol Ballet in 2017  

*I've taken my girls to see a Nutcracker Ballet performance every year since 2011! (with the exception of 2020 Covid year)

It's such a joy to watch our girls perform on stage!

(Dabney is the lovely girl with the blue/purple skirt and shawl with the gold ribbon around her purple-trimmed hat.  Emory is the baby mouse on the far left.)

Nutcracker 2022 - dress rehearsals

 
Our four ballerinas have been working hard preparing for the Nutcracker performances.  Dress rehearsal week is always exciting - the girls have been looking forward to being back on stage at the Palace Theater.  

This year, Emory is a baby mouse - eating cheese (battle scene). Dabney is a package girl - decorating a tree and helping to hand the nutcracker present to Drosselmeyer (overture/pre-party scene). Addy is a cherub, and Maclaren is an angel - welcoming Clara and the Nutcracker prince to the Land of Sweets along with the Sugar Plum Fairy (opening the second act). 

O Christmas Tree

Practically a Christmas miracle . . . for possibly our last time ever, all 15 of us got go out to our favorite local tree farm to find our family Christmas tree.  Not only did we all get to go, we also had the farm to ourselves (it was at 8:00am on a weekend, and it was 22 degrees outside - brrr!).  The kids were (mostly) great sports and we found a beautiful tree for the Christmas season.   I am incredibly grateful!  

(And Mike is super thankful to have yet another year of Hendrick carrying our tree!)