Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A Little Christmas Magic….or

The day I became Cindy Lou Who

This past weekend I went to a Christmas concert. The orchestra was divine as always and seeing friends was nice, but the absolute highlight of the concert for me was the entrance of the sugar plum fairies. These particular fairies were four and five year old "ballerinas" in purple tutus and fairy wings. When they tippy toed out to the familiar strains of the Nutcracker Suite and the first one hit her mark and stopped, the second one hit her mark and stopped, the third one hit her mark and stopped and so on down the line until the last one plowed into the second to the last one and almost knocked her down…. not noticing because she was too busy beaming and waving at the audience….. I was delighted beyond words.

And this was even before they started dancing.

When their section of the musical program started their teacher who was kneeling on the floor in front of the stage led them through their routine. They "danced" all the way through the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies without major incident and then beaming and waving at their parents in the audience tippy toed back off the stage. It was so incredibly cute I could hardly stand it. Especially the little wings bouncing when they tippy toed. I'm still grinning about it now while I'm telling you about it.

My delight in the fairies spilled over into the next segment which held Santa's arrival. He came in like a juggernaut and ran up and down the aisles high fiving children left and right; whipping them into a Christmas frenzy. When he had them on the edge of hysteria, he stopped at the front of the theatre and asked if the children would like to see Mrs. Clause. They shrieked "YES" and Mrs. Clause appeared with a basket of candy canes which she and Santa then began distributing. The WHOLE time this was going on there was a three year old about twenty rows in front of me shrieking "Santa" "Santa" and jumping up and down on her seat. Her father had a good grip on her but I was still concerned that there was going to be a need for the tooth fairy before Santa actually got over to her to give her a candy cane.

So there I was, sitting way in the back of the theatre because that's where my friend had found the source of all heat in the universe and was basking in it like a lizard…..beaming at Santa and Mrs. Clause as they distributed candy canes to all the children in the audience.

Well, here's the funny part.

And I'm totally blaming it on the magic of Christmas.

There were no children in the section of the theatre where we were, but Mrs. Clause made a bee line for me and gave me a candy cane.

I smiled and thanked her and ACTUALLY HUGGED IT TO MY CHEST like Cindy Lou Who in the Grinch.

AND I DON'T EVEN LIKE CANDY CANES.

So I hung the candy cane on a button on my coat that reads "I write therefore I am" and enjoyed the rest of the concert.

Afterwards my daughter [who was in the concert btw and was MARVELOUS] and I were waiting in line for refreshments.

She was telling me about the cookies that she had made and how each one contained at least five cups of sugar all by itself and that she hoped no one with diabetes tried one and then we were just talking about this and that the way we do with our chipmunk voices that get higher and squeakier when we get excited…..

And I noticed the man in front of us in line laughing and trying not to show it.

So I said to him something along the line of yes this is how we always talk and it was ok for him to be delighted by us since we were delightful and he turned around and introduced himself and we chatted for a while and I noticed that he ALSO had a candy cane sticking out of his coat pocket.

He mentioned that he thought he was the only adult in his section who had received a candy cane from Mrs. Clause. I said that I was the only adult in my section who had received a candy cane......

Then the world spun away and we were the only two people in the room and the music swelled….…..

Well ok, that last part didn't happen, but we had a nice chat and I'm pretty sure that my daughter and I were his version of the delightful thing to take away from the concert just like the sugar plum fairies were mine.

I love going through life spreading a little sparkly trail of joy…..


 


 

Happy holidays everyone….

18 comments:

Laura Eno said...

Have I mentioned yet that you're waaaay too sparkly and full of sugar and happiness? That's why you need people like me, who live on the dark side, to balance the universe. Otherwise, the earth would spin too fast and be thrown off-balance and Mr & Mrs Clause would be cast into outer space and it would be ALL YOUR FAULT!
Did you ever think of that?

Marisa Birns said...

Oh, I love this. Random quirky magical things like that happen to me all the time. It's the best way to live, isn't it?

And now you have proof positive that you're on Santa's Nice list and you'll get lots of presents.

But, way cooler is that you HAVE spread much sparkly trails of joy with this post!

I am having breakfast now in NYC. I haven't taken a bite out of the Big Apple yet, but I do have a bagel with cream cheese waiting...

Laura Eno said...

Oh yeah, happy holidays from the two-headed beast.

Karen from Mentor said...

and you didn't even have to use up any ***** s

Happy holidays to you Ms. Laura...you make every day more fun. Thank you for balancing out my sparkly with your flames...wouldn't want to be the cause of the destruction of the world....[again]

Karen from Mentor said...

"It's the best way to live, isn't it?"
I WHOLE HEARTEDLY agree Marisa.

I KNEW we were two peas in a pod.

Hope you have fun in NYC.

Thanks for adding your bubbly bounce to my side of the equation.

Combining forces light/dark we'll keep the world spinning properly on its axis...while weekly killing people with our keyboards....

judy said...

I love this story. Especially your description of the sugar plum faries, and the happily-ever-after ending that wasn't.

But still it was happy, and sparkly. (I don't like candy canes either!)

Kris said...

This was great! If I wasn't already in the Christmas spirit, I would be now! And now you have a perfect intro to a romance novel with the other candy cane recipient as the love interest! Santa and Mrs. Claus could be your Best Man and Matron of Honor. Some elves could be the diminutive ring bearers and the sugar plum fairies could be flower girls. You could be carted off to some exotic location for your honeymoon in Santa's sleigh. (Hold out for someplace warm, though. None of this North Pole in winter crap!)

And for the record, the image of your friend basking like a lizard near the heat source is a great one!

Merry Christmas!

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas Karen!
Your description of the sugar plum fairies was delightful, I can imagine how cute they were just by reading this.
And I loved your love story that never happened there :P

Karen from Mentor said...

Ah..the love story that never was...*sigh*

And the sugar plum fairies Estrella? I had a hard time not smuggling one out in my coat...

Merry Christmas honey!
[Rachel will be here in two hours and the revelling will commence] :0)

Karen from Mentor said...

Kris, I enjoyed your comment so much that I think YOU should write that romance novel. It's a divine concept...I think it would be a best seller. [write me in a cameo for the movie will ya?]

Merry Christmas to you and yours. I'll smile in my sleep on Christmas morning around 5:00am picturing you being blearilly pulled from your bed by wide eyed children. My little lovely will sleep til the heavenly aroma of sticky buns wake her ....which will be around a nice civilized 9:00am.
:0)

Karen from Mentor said...

Judy why am I not surprised that you don't like candy canes either? I still say that we were separated at birth.

I just heard my favorite Christmas movie line of all time
[during the 24 hours of "A Christmas Story" marathon]

the line?

"the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window"

*happy sigh*

Merry Christmas to you, Chad, the boys and of course Lexi!!!!!!!!

big big hugs and love,
Karen :0)

Cat Connor said...

Merry Christmas!

from an ex-sugar plum fairy. :-)

Anonymous said...

I hope you had a super-duper sparkly Christmas, Karen!

Karen from Mentor said...

Thanks Linda and the same to you and yours!

We had a lovely day.

Today I'm working on getting rid of my cookie hangover. :0)

Karen from Mentor said...

Cat I can totally see you as a sugar plum fairy....I just take the photos of Breezy in her summer fairy outfit, add dark hair and extrapolate from there.

Hugs honey!!!!!!
Karen :0)

jane, candid said...

Karen, I love this story, and it is indeed a sprinkling of fairy dust for all of us! The visual of the tiny ballerinas on their tiptoes made me smile. Sweeter than a candy cane...
Hope you had a happy Christmas, and wishing you a very happy new year!
Jane

Square-Peg Karen said...

Smiling from ear to ear now! Thanks so much for sharing this, Karen!!

Karen from Mentor said...

You're so welcome Karen. I love the idea of gathering christmas stories to help people battle the holiday blues.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to dust this one off.
:0)