The Nutcracker

As a kid, Christmas is kind of a big deal. It's a time where you do things the exact same way you did them the year previously, because that's tradition, and tradition brings back good memories. Or, as in the case of bad memories, laughter that comes much, much later.

One of my all time favorite Christmas time memory is the time my Grandma took the granddaughters to the ballet. She had organized a special night for us girls to watch The Nutcracker in Vancouver.

side note: Grandma will be known as 'Grams' from now on, cause Grandma and Grandpa get cool nicknames that make no sense but everyone calls them that anyway.

The granddaughters at this point in life consisted of my two sisters Ashley and Shannon and our cousin Kate. Kate lived in Nanaimo, and if you've read previous posts you know by now I lived in Whistler, and Gram lived in Osoyoos but somehow our family had arranged it so we met in Vancouver for a special evening.
Actually we probably met in Horseshoe Bay at the designated meet up point and Gram probably suffered through Vancouver traffic to get us to the hotel safely while the four of us jibber jabbered in the back seats.
The hotel!! We stayed in a hotel! This didn't happen a lot and I believe this began my infatuation with nice hotel rooms, ones with pretty views and nice bedspreads, and free stationary and random extra chairs situated throughout the room.
I don't remember the hotel we stayed in but I remember a part of the view was the Woodwards W rotating on top of a building and been kind of mesmerized by that and wondering why someone would put a W on top of a building and not another letter.

So we're staying in the city, it's Christmas time, and when you're little,everything seems huge. So a big sparkly city with sparkly decorations...my mind was blown.
I remember walking by The Hudson's Bay store with the big windows decorated with tinsel, and white fluff and fake snow and colors and lights and shapes of all sizes and Christmas music, and giant department stores and lots of people. Gift wrapped presents under giant shiny trees, nice store people giving out candy, people lined up for photos with Santa. It was as if we were in a movie. Oh it was just so great to clamor from window to window, never knowing what the next one would look like, but being amazed by each one all the same and pointing out our favorite parts. I don't remember letting go of Gram's hand but I'm sure we gave her a start with the four of us wandering off in separate directions all the time.

That night we got ready in the hotel room for the ballet. We might have ordered room service, I may have made that up. We got to wear pretty dresses, at this point I think we all believed we were princesses and our carriage was waiting to take us to the ball.
The Nutcracker ballet was amazing. I think. I might have fallen asleep at some point, it had been a very long day and as all girls know playing princess can be very tiring. I remember not really understanding the story so much, I mean there were mice, and mouse kings, and did they eat the gingerbread men? And I thought nutcrackers cracked nuts, what do they have to do with sugarplums and giant men dressed as creepy wolves, but the music was pretty and the ballerinas were lovely.
After the ballet Gram probably scooped us all up and poured us into bed... it was like that scene out of 'Annie' when she goes to the movies and Daddy Warbucks tucks her into bed after a magical evening. And this time every year when I see an ad for The Nutcracker or hear the music there's a part of me that gets transported back to the ballet and the pretty dresses and the time our Grams took us to the big city and ballet. After all, Christmas time is a time for nostalgia, family, and memories. And bright sparkly lights :)

What you need to know

My wrapping is not a reflection on how I feel about you. I love you very much, it just doesn't come across in the way I wrap presents. Each year, every Christmas, every birthday I think I've reached a new low in my abilities until the next time I'm surrounded by discarded and unusable wrapping paper. My sister Ashley loves wrapping presents, she loves the bows and ribbons of it all, she does such a good job all the time, it must drive her nuts how badly I do it. I don't even bother with bows and when people make the pretty ribbon go all curly I stand slack jawed in awe. I usually start off nicely, but then I get bored real quick and the nog needs to be tended to. I put a lot of thought into the present itself, not a heck of a lot into the wrapping.

 Here's how it goes with the first present
 1) Neatly cut paper.
2) Measure precisely.
3) Carefully tuck and fold ends flat.
4) Never use more than 5 strips of tape. Stand in awe of your beautiful work.

Next present

1) Cut paper. Doesn't matter if parts tear or if it's even, those bits get hidden anyways right?
2)  Basically smoosh all the end paper bits down in to a ball. Use both hands.
3) straddle present between legs.
4) hold scissors in mouth.
5) use both hands to get a strip of tape long enough to wrap around both ends.
6) Spit out scissors.
Stand in awe at the horror you have created.
Repeat until wrapping is done or you run out of paper, or can't find the scissors cause you wrapped em by accident.
That's how it's done. And remember, I love you.