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Happy Holidays!!!
Dec. 13th, 2015 05:06 pmHaving an AWESOME two weekends. I'm such a Christmas nerd. Not quite Buddy the Elf levels but close.
Last weekend we went to Lord of the Dance in New York on Saturday and then had the Holly Feis on Sunday. Bus down to NYC was a charter, and they showed kids' Christmas movies both ways (well, the last one was Mary Poppins, but that's so awesome that it doesn't matter). Elf, Grinch, Polar Express, Home Alone......I was SO into it. The show was surprisingly good. I'm not really a fan of Michael Flatley, particularly the mullet-sporting Riverdance Michael Flatley. So on principle I've never, ever seen or even bought the soundtrack to LOTD. But he wasn't in it, and honestly it was actually a lot better than Riverdance, whose piss-poor excuse of a plot was cheesy to the extreme. LOTD's plot was also extremely cheesy, but it was more of a theme than a plot and for the most part the focus was on the dancing. After the show we got to meet the cast, since the kids' teacher, Mike, is pretty high up on the Irish dance totem pole (such as it is) and knows most of them. Caroline got a bunch of autographs and I got some pictures of the kids.
After that we walked around, went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, got trampled by the other two million people with the same idea, dealt with mean NYC cops (they're so much meaner than Boston cops!), and Julia decided she hated New York City-- that's my girl!
The next day Caroline had the Holly Feis run by two other local schools. They go all out for this one-- Santa Claus is there for pictures, the dancers all get candy canes when they're done competing, and in between sets the fiddler was playing Christmas carols. She medaled for the first time in her heavy jig and slip jig-- I was so proud! After that I took her out to brunch at the best Irish pub in our area, which has an amazing Sunday brunch buffet and a seisun. The whistle player was doing Irish-sounding Christmas carols (not actually Irish) like "Un Flambeau Jeanette, Isabelle" and "I Saw Three Ships." Caroline went over and asked if they could play dance tunes, and she did her reel, jig, and slip jig.
Then this weekend, on Friday night I met up with my friend Una and her daughter Orla and we all went to see the Christmas lights display at the La Salette shrine, followed by dinner at Bliss Brothers Dairy up the street. Tuna melts and chocolate frappes-- I was in heaven. Yesterday, we met my sister and BIL at their place in Jamaica Plain and went into Newbury Street for our annual Christmas "shopping" trip. (It's mostly just browsing.) Caroline spent all her money on gifts for her sister. I was so proud. We had lunch at this really good Japanese place that just launched a ramen menu. I've never had such good ramen. Then today, we had another feis, this one called the Christmas Feis, up north of Boston. Caroline kicked ass-- five dances, four seconds and one third. She had so much energy. When I complimented her dancing, before we even knew the results, she responded that she was looking forward to the donuts we were going to get and wanted to earn them. She totally did. Finished up the trip with a stop at Kane's donuts down the street. The cashier wished me a Happy Hanukkah when I bough some sufganyiot. And get this, Bill O'Reilly-- I smiled and said thank you! It was perfectly logical that someone buying sufganyiot celebrates Hanukkah; she was being thoughtful. War on Christmas my ass.
I started to get a migraine at the feis, so I called CVS on the way home to make sure I could get some meds, and then stopped there. That meant a nap when they kicked in. I just got up and threw in a load of laundry and started some stock for turkey soup, which also meant cleaning out the fridge. We ordered a NE Patriots game day special from the local pizza place, and now we're going to go decorate the tree. I've got my iTunes filter set to "Holiday" and we're just running down the THREE DAYS' worth of Christmas songs I have.
Last weekend we went to Lord of the Dance in New York on Saturday and then had the Holly Feis on Sunday. Bus down to NYC was a charter, and they showed kids' Christmas movies both ways (well, the last one was Mary Poppins, but that's so awesome that it doesn't matter). Elf, Grinch, Polar Express, Home Alone......I was SO into it. The show was surprisingly good. I'm not really a fan of Michael Flatley, particularly the mullet-sporting Riverdance Michael Flatley. So on principle I've never, ever seen or even bought the soundtrack to LOTD. But he wasn't in it, and honestly it was actually a lot better than Riverdance, whose piss-poor excuse of a plot was cheesy to the extreme. LOTD's plot was also extremely cheesy, but it was more of a theme than a plot and for the most part the focus was on the dancing. After the show we got to meet the cast, since the kids' teacher, Mike, is pretty high up on the Irish dance totem pole (such as it is) and knows most of them. Caroline got a bunch of autographs and I got some pictures of the kids.
After that we walked around, went to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, got trampled by the other two million people with the same idea, dealt with mean NYC cops (they're so much meaner than Boston cops!), and Julia decided she hated New York City-- that's my girl!
The next day Caroline had the Holly Feis run by two other local schools. They go all out for this one-- Santa Claus is there for pictures, the dancers all get candy canes when they're done competing, and in between sets the fiddler was playing Christmas carols. She medaled for the first time in her heavy jig and slip jig-- I was so proud! After that I took her out to brunch at the best Irish pub in our area, which has an amazing Sunday brunch buffet and a seisun. The whistle player was doing Irish-sounding Christmas carols (not actually Irish) like "Un Flambeau Jeanette, Isabelle" and "I Saw Three Ships." Caroline went over and asked if they could play dance tunes, and she did her reel, jig, and slip jig.
Then this weekend, on Friday night I met up with my friend Una and her daughter Orla and we all went to see the Christmas lights display at the La Salette shrine, followed by dinner at Bliss Brothers Dairy up the street. Tuna melts and chocolate frappes-- I was in heaven. Yesterday, we met my sister and BIL at their place in Jamaica Plain and went into Newbury Street for our annual Christmas "shopping" trip. (It's mostly just browsing.) Caroline spent all her money on gifts for her sister. I was so proud. We had lunch at this really good Japanese place that just launched a ramen menu. I've never had such good ramen. Then today, we had another feis, this one called the Christmas Feis, up north of Boston. Caroline kicked ass-- five dances, four seconds and one third. She had so much energy. When I complimented her dancing, before we even knew the results, she responded that she was looking forward to the donuts we were going to get and wanted to earn them. She totally did. Finished up the trip with a stop at Kane's donuts down the street. The cashier wished me a Happy Hanukkah when I bough some sufganyiot. And get this, Bill O'Reilly-- I smiled and said thank you! It was perfectly logical that someone buying sufganyiot celebrates Hanukkah; she was being thoughtful. War on Christmas my ass.
I started to get a migraine at the feis, so I called CVS on the way home to make sure I could get some meds, and then stopped there. That meant a nap when they kicked in. I just got up and threw in a load of laundry and started some stock for turkey soup, which also meant cleaning out the fridge. We ordered a NE Patriots game day special from the local pizza place, and now we're going to go decorate the tree. I've got my iTunes filter set to "Holiday" and we're just running down the THREE DAYS' worth of Christmas songs I have.
