Happy Making: Day V
Yes I realized I missed yesterday but I barely got near the computer so blahblahblahexcuse. Besides, yesterday wasn't too much of a happy making day. BUT: there was something that made my old fat heart break with cuteness toward the end of it.
My father and mother sing in a choir. My mother actually sings in two choirs but since her stroke that kind of went out the window for this year. Which is not entirely a bad thing but, anyway. Every year the choir they sing in together has this "family and friends" night. It's the same as any other concert they do but they encourage family members to show up. And about 14 people interpreted that as: "Keep your kids up way past their bedtimes, give them candy corn with pixie-stix frosting for dinner and then force them into their most uncomfortable velour clothing and bring them to a church for 2 hours!" At one point, Dunkleman sent her eyes skyward and whispered to me "I feel like I'm in an insane asylum." We all did.
However. One of the members of the choir is a professional Santa during the Christmas season. For those of you who have me on facebook, he's the one whose lap I'm sitting on in my profile picture. And he is a fabulous Santa. Rosy cheeked, deep voiced, chubby and with a lovely full head of white hair and a real, tuggable beard. Virginia would have taken one look at this man and said "You know what? Scrap the movie, I just started believing in him again." And all the kids, as per usual, were invited to come up on stage and sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and afterward, Santa handed out really adorable toys. The director of the choir and her husband are sort of afficionados of stuffed plush. That's an Italian word meaning "obsessive hoarders to the point of bug-nuts crazydom". And God bless Harry. He let every one of those crazy, sugar-crusted children sit on his lap and dutifully whisper into his perfect-Santa ear what they wanted. And let all their crazy parents take pictures. We continued the sing-a-long portion of the evening loooong past what it should have been but, in retrospect, it was really really cute watching these ADD children sit quietly on Santa's lap and respectfully wait for their turn to tell the big man what was on their minds and wishlists.
Then I found out, in addition to singing the 1 1/2 hour concert in a 25-lbs santa suit, Harry also had had 4 previous events that day in which he was required to be adorable and understanding and sweet and St. Nicholassy. And my big fat heart melted into a pile of "I Can't Believe it's all Butter". He's a lovely man.
Then we had to drive home through bus strike traffic and I practically shat myself. But hey, you can't win them all.
My father and mother sing in a choir. My mother actually sings in two choirs but since her stroke that kind of went out the window for this year. Which is not entirely a bad thing but, anyway. Every year the choir they sing in together has this "family and friends" night. It's the same as any other concert they do but they encourage family members to show up. And about 14 people interpreted that as: "Keep your kids up way past their bedtimes, give them candy corn with pixie-stix frosting for dinner and then force them into their most uncomfortable velour clothing and bring them to a church for 2 hours!" At one point, Dunkleman sent her eyes skyward and whispered to me "I feel like I'm in an insane asylum." We all did.
However. One of the members of the choir is a professional Santa during the Christmas season. For those of you who have me on facebook, he's the one whose lap I'm sitting on in my profile picture. And he is a fabulous Santa. Rosy cheeked, deep voiced, chubby and with a lovely full head of white hair and a real, tuggable beard. Virginia would have taken one look at this man and said "You know what? Scrap the movie, I just started believing in him again." And all the kids, as per usual, were invited to come up on stage and sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and afterward, Santa handed out really adorable toys. The director of the choir and her husband are sort of afficionados of stuffed plush. That's an Italian word meaning "obsessive hoarders to the point of bug-nuts crazydom". And God bless Harry. He let every one of those crazy, sugar-crusted children sit on his lap and dutifully whisper into his perfect-Santa ear what they wanted. And let all their crazy parents take pictures. We continued the sing-a-long portion of the evening loooong past what it should have been but, in retrospect, it was really really cute watching these ADD children sit quietly on Santa's lap and respectfully wait for their turn to tell the big man what was on their minds and wishlists.
Then I found out, in addition to singing the 1 1/2 hour concert in a 25-lbs santa suit, Harry also had had 4 previous events that day in which he was required to be adorable and understanding and sweet and St. Nicholassy. And my big fat heart melted into a pile of "I Can't Believe it's all Butter". He's a lovely man.
Then we had to drive home through bus strike traffic and I practically shat myself. But hey, you can't win them all.