Christmas and New Year Holiday 2013

We had a very nice Christmas holiday full of interesting and lovely activities. We stayed very busy and we got a lot done. Erika and I both had two full weeks of vacation which was very nice and Paul had a full week and two weekends—so he had a longish vacation as well. Erika had made a calendar with undertakings that she wanted to accomplish before the vacation was through to get ready for her wedding and the attendant activities associated with it. We shopped and we crafted and we shopped and we crafted and we stayed very busy. But additionally we had some really fun activities. We like to attend at least one Christmas theatrical experience during the season and this year Erika and I (neither Paul nor Jono went with us) attended the Odyssey Dance Company’s version of The Nutcracker. It was held at Kingsbury Hall and it was really interesting and modern. Odyssey Dance Theatre is a very contemporary dance company and does its own version of many classic dance pieces. They brought the Nutcracker to life in the present day still using a smartly updated version of Tchaikovsky’s original score and with the dancing arranged in a pop/hip-hop style with a tiny bit of ballet thrown in. Imagine Clara as the young lady whose imagination is not inspired by a nutcracker, but is drawn into a magical world inspired by her smartphone. There were some really fun costumes and fabulous backdrops that changed like someone moving through screens of a smartphone or ipad. The “toy soldiers” were robots with really imaginative lighted panels on their costumes which changed colors and the “mice” were dressed and costumed in “gangsta” style with a hip-hop swagga. It was so interesting, imaginative and delightful. Erika and I really enjoyed it. If you have seen one too many Nutcrackers, this is the one you would want to see. It was familiar at the same time being very new and interesting. There were still the ethnic dances, the Chinese dance, the Russian Dance but also very smartly updated, and some really cute costumes for them too. The Waltz of the Flowers was done with a corps de ballet in the traditional form, but augmented with “Angry Birds” inserts, very cute and funny. We had a very nice evening. As promised in their publicity bulletin it was a “visual feast full of surprises.” I worked really hard in the weeks before Christmas to finish the fourth and last of my genealogical compilations. This year it was my maternal grandmother’s family the Gordon Book. During those last days before Christmas I finished the book, got it printed and bound and then sent to my siblings and wrapped for my parents and children. It was a great feeling to have the majority of that project behind me. I am still planning this year to move all the histories and associated pictures to The Church’s Family Tree website so that everyone can access to the work that I have done. There will not be books for grandchildren or cousins or nieces and nephews—but the histories will all be available on the website perpetually. And then my work will be done. This has been a very satisfying project and I am glad that I did it, I know my own ancestors better now than ever before, there are a lot of them and I have to really concentrate now to keep the various family lines separated. One of the things that happened over the vacation was that Erika had her bridal pictures taken. This was a huge project all on its own. She didn’t just have solo bridal pictures but pictures with her and Jono. We got a bridal bouquet, she had her hair done at a salon, had her make-up applied professionally with special foundation that kept her skin from “shining” in the flash photography, the wedding dress altered and steamed and pressed, her cute red shoes, Jono’s new suit and tie, and boutonniere, and both of them looking wonderful happy and beautiful and in love. This was the first time that I met the photographer. He is the same one who did their engagement pictures and is a very relaxed and comfortable photographer. It was a freezing cold day, about 37 degrees and Erika was in her dress and Jono in his suit with no extra clothing for the pictures. Between shots they put on coats and tried to warm up. The photo shoot took place at Salt Lake Temple square and City Creek Center with some shots on the upper floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building with the giant chandelier in the background. Both Erika and Jono were frozen half to death at the end of the two and a half hour photo shoot. I was there serving as the beast of burden, carrying Erika’s coat, touch-up bag with make-up and comb and change of shoes and purse, and holding Jono’s wallet and phone and keys. So I got to see the whole thing. It was kind of fun. I got plenty cold and I was wearing long pants, a coat and gloves. The two of them were covered with goose bumps by the end. One of Erika’s friends came to watch part of it and took a really cute photo of Jono helping Erika retouch her lipstick. Her hands were so cold she could hardly hold the lipstick so Jono tried his hand (his gloved hands) at retouching it instead. We started the shoot at about 3:00, because Erika especially wanted some photographs with the lights of temple square in the background. (The shoot had to take place before January 1st because after that they don’t turn the lights on anymore. The photographer told us that we would have about a half an hour between the time that the lights turned on and the time when it would be too dark to get good photographs. Erika especially wanted to get a shot of her and Jono in front of the fountains and twinkle lights of the City Creek South Temple entrance. It was on her most wished for photograph list. And her photographer came through for her. We haven’t seen the collection of pictures yet. The photographer is still doing post-production on them, but he did send Erika the picture of her and Jono in front of the entrance to City Creek with the fountains and the twinkle lights. Jono is dipping Erika and it looks like something that you would see in a movie. Erika is so pleased that the picture there worked out. We had a couple of really nice horse activities over the Christmas holiday, too. On Christmas eve afternoon, Paul brought out the surrey and trailered Rory to our house and we had surrey rides. Jono’s parents and sisters came for rides, and my parents had their traditional Christmas Eve ride. Paul and I took a ride together. It was a cold evening, but with a warm coat and gloves and the buffalo robes it was rather fun. Jono’s parents and sisters had never had a ride in a horse drawn vehicle so it was a new experience for them. (We like them a lot—they are really nice people). We have been having my parents for dinner on Christmas Eve for a number of years and they have us for dinner on Christmas day. It is a nice arrangement. And who knows how many more years we will be able to do it. On Saturday Paul and I went by ourselves to the pasture and had a sleigh ride with Rory in the pasture. We just made a large loop several times and had fun just the two of us. Rory really likes doing the surrey, but has to work a bit harder with the sleigh. There was a sprinkling of fresh snow on Saturday morning and so the pasture had that sparkling look of new snow. But there was hard crusty snow underneath that had to be cut through with the sleigh and it looked like work to me for Rory. I was determined to get Christmas put away before I went back to work and was successful at that. And so now our dining room is a workshop for the decorations for Erika’s reception. We have some of the parts of the centerpieces for the reception finished and the ribbon wristbands and necklaces for the bridesmaids and boutonnieres for the groomsmen and lots of other miscellaneous wedding stuff in our “workshop” there. Things are coming together and we are feeling quite accomplished after this time of concentrated work on Erika’s wedding preparation. I need to hem two of the bridesmaid skirts and my own skirt and I have just about finished a little dress for Eleanor—there will always be something to keep us busy. And so we press on.