a little date-night with my girls

My memory is fuzzy in many respects.

I can’t remember a lot of details of things (the reason why I’m now such an avid record-keeper), but even without the details I can remember feelings.  And those velvety nostalgic feelings wash over me whenever I think of the Nutcracker.  I love that my parents took me a few times growing up and exposed me to that beauty:  the music, the graceful dancers, the special night set aside to be together.

There’s something about it all that just speaks to me.  So this year when we heard some of our friends were going to be in a local production my friend and I decided to take our girls.

We all looked forward to it for a long time since we booked the tickets early.  Claire and Lucy read our little condensed book and Lucy spilled out all kinds of details I didn’t even know when I was doing her hair one morning.

When I let her know there were no words in the Nutcracker she broke out in tears.  How in the world would they be able to tell the story without words??

But that girl sat on the edge of her seat all night mesmerized.

Can you tell by this picture that she was completely enthralled?

HA!

We actually took that at the end of the night when it was WAY past her bedtime and Lu doesn’t do so well past her bedtime.  But I’ll tell you right now she had stars in her eyes about that thing until she realized how tired she was when it was all over.

Needless to say she got it without the words quite perfectly.

It was a little bit of a shortened version with very young and very talented dancers.  I was amazed at how good they were.

My college friend’s daughter was the Snow Queen.  Yes, she is that good.  It was so fun to hang with her mom during the intermission:

…and especially fun that she was able to get us back-stage passes when the show was over.

They showed us how the fog machine worked and how the “snow” worked during the Snow Queen part.  The guy explained that magical effect is achieved with mashed potato flakes mixed with glitter and he let that stuff “snow” on the girls for a split-second.

They got to meet the main dancers.  I think every girl is especially enthralled with Clara…can you tell they adored her?

Our friends who came with us:

Love the Allreds!

The Snow Queen:

Back stage we got to give hugs to some other friends the girls knew from school:

We left with our hearts full of that velvety beautiful feeling that only such beauty can give, Claire begging to take ballet lessons…and the girls’ hair filled with mashed potato flakes from the “snow.”

How I hope these girls’ will keep that feeling we came away with close to their hearts like I have over all these years.