The Charlie Brown tree

For the second year now the kids have gone out into the woods and come back with a raggedy, crooked little white pine sapling which they doll up just a bit.  Cute.

An afternoon at the opera

We took the kids to see Don Carlo yesterday – the Metropolitan Opera live HDTV broadcast on the big screen at The Strand.  There was much preliminary moaning about the 4 ½ - hour run time, but once we got there they were fully engaged.  Hungry by the first intermission, but engaged. 

I was impressed, because Don Carlo is, probably more than any other opera, a wrenching portrayal of people who are utterly at the mercy of forces larger than themselves – political, emotional, religious, it’s all there, and it requires a certain maturity of perspective to appreciate.  

This is the third season that we’ve splurged on a family outing to the opera broadcast.  By now my punks are unfazed at being the youngest people there (attendance is heavily skewed to retirees of a certain income level) and they are better behaved than the some of the old people. 

This performance was impressive, to be sure.  In fact it was marred only by the lead tenor’s singing his big opening aria with a ginormous booger hanging out of his left nostril.  

HD is so unforgiving.

My favorite Christmas decoration

Sometimes – very rarely, but it does happen – you find the exactly the right gift for someone.  Something thoughtful, appropriate, unique, personal; something that will evoke memories and bring a smile every time they look at it.

This was one of those gifts.  (Hard to get a good shot of it without glare - sorry.)

It was presented to me maybe ten years ago by my choir in Pennsylvania, the year we tackled Craig Courtney’s “A Musicological Journey through the Twelve Days of Christmas” – wherein each verse progresses, in historical order, through musical periods (the first day of Christmas is set like a Gregorian chant, and by the twelfth you wind up in a mashup of The Stars and Stripes Forever – with stops along the way to visit Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and Saint-Saens.  Brilliant but brutal; I’m still not sure what possessed me that year).

The tree is a paper cutout representing the twelve days of Christmas – the twelve drummers comprise the fundament and the partridge is the crown.  The red batik-fabric background was dyed by one of the altos.  Another alto’s gallery took care of the matting and frame.

I get a warm fuzzy every single year when I put it out. 

A big shoutout to my UU homies back in Meadville:  Merry Christmannukwanzaa. 

I miss you guys. 

The season

Getting the Christmas tree is always an event. 

We have a vaulted ceiling in the great room, so we get a big one - say twelve feet.  Since the designated site is occupied forty-nine weeks of the year by bookshelves, there's a lot of work involved before the tree even comes in the door.  At the end of the season everything has to be done in reverse.

The logistics of managing a tree this size are complicated too.  It's friggin' heavy, for starters.  It requires a super-sized base.  We always anchor it to the wall, just to be on the safe side.  And the sheer number of lights involved?  Unless we win the lottery, we won't be switching to LED any time soon. 

It's a production, but by gorry when it's done it really feels like Christmas.

The kids are big enough now to help move heavy things, and this year it went quite smoothly.  We picked up the tree on Friday night.  Yesterday we brought it inside and decorated it.

It's a balsam, so the house smells delicious.  It's not the tallest tree we've ever had, but it's exceptionally full (it took the kids a full half hour to find the pickle ornament...). 

This morning's dusting of snow adds to the spirit. 

Now if I could just get inspired to write the annual family newsletter...

But who's counting...?

There are only 1.2 million people in the entire state, and most of those reside in the greater Portland area.  The population here in the midcoast is relatively thin. 

Our schools, small though they are, work hard to focus on the arts, and the high school in our particular district consistently cranks out choral and instrumental ensembles that compete successfully at both state and regional levels. 

The middle school music program is crucial in developing this talent. 

Let’s face it, though:  regardless of the untapped potential represented by any given class of fifth graders, you take these students – some of whom do not know a quarter note from page 8 – hand them a bunch of instruments, rehearse for two months, and then give a concert, consider yourself lucky if they produce a recognizable melody.

Year over year, the beginning band’s annual fall rendition of Hot Cross Buns does not get any better.  But if you want proof that miracles do happen, take that performance and compare it to the stuff the 7^th-8^th grade symphonic band pulls off.   

Saint Patricia is the middle school band director.  She takes all the silliness and spit valves and squeaking reeds and just plain bad playing and in four short years, she turns it into something worth listening to.  Somehow she also maintains her sanity and her sense of humor. 

I have been to exactly seven middle school band concerts so far. 

I have exactly seven left to go.

Doing our part to help the retail sector this holiday season...

We pulled the plug on commercial television early in the first Clinton administration.  This was before marriage and kids, and it wasn’t because we had any particular moral or aesthetic objection; we just decided the money we were spending on the cable subscription could be put to much better use.  

So far the children are growing up without any serious psychological scars.

We’ve always kept a television set, though, tucked away in cellar with the old living room furniture, which we use regularly for watching movies and the occasional TV show on DVD.  (Huge Big Bang Theory fans.  Huge.  And that whole Netflix on demand thing through the Wii?  Brilliant.)

And a while back we got to thinking that it was time upgrade the old set.  Current sale prices convinced us to make said upgrade the Christmas “family gift.”

So yesterday we loaded everyone into the truck and drove to Augusta to do some comparison shopping, and we came home with a new 55” LED HDTV, which is an vast improvement over the old set in about four hundred sixty-seven ways.  

Getting the thing up and running - between the wall-mounting device, the new Blu-ray player, the A/V receiver and surround sound, the Wii, the Interweb – was kind of an event.  You know something is complicated when Himself has to spend two hours on the phone with tech support; that was last night, and he’s still at it down there, but I think he’s almost done.  

It’s a school night but we might have to watch a movie anyway…

Simplest appetizer on the planet

My mother-in-law used to make this.  Very popular and festive, but absolutely no work...

Shrimp spread

8 oz cream cheese
1 8-oz jar cocktail sauce
1 7-oz can shrimp, drained

Put the cream cheese on a small rimmed plate.  Dump the cocktail sauce on top of the cream cheese.  Dump the shrimp on top of the cocktail sauce.  Serve with crackers.