Monday, December 26, 2011

The Nutcracker

Well, I crossed the first item off of the 40 X 40 list:

# 31 - Take Lucie to the Nutcracker (I'm literally crossing them off on that post as I finish.)

We went and it was fabulous!


Hun, Grandboom (my mother), Lucie, her friend Madison, and I went into Boston on the 23rd for an evening performance. 

No pictures in the theater so Lu's toy will stand in for the event
The Boston Opera House is beautiful, dare I say "magical," at Christmastime. Our seats were good... actually, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find bad seats.


The sets were lovely. I understand that they were designed in Italy and that this is the last year they're being used. There are no photographs of the sets because the staff will blind you with a flashlight and publicly shame you if you try to take a picture in the theater. No, I don't have personal experience with the blinding shame, you only have to see it happen to someone else once before you decide not to try it.


At the end of the first act, the lights came up and Lu and Mads exclaimed "THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" I was really excited that they liked it so much because I love it too... However, that was short-lived because at the end of the second act Lu says "That was a horror show!" and she said the the spinning tutus "made me want to throw-up because they made me so dizzy" Oh how far you have fallen Boston Ballet, from "AWESOME" to "horror show" in the space of one act. I think it had more to do with the fact that it was approaching 10:00 PM. *Note to self - a matinee might be a better option next time.*


They did have to admit that Mother Ginger was awesome though. Mother Ginger was my favorite when I was little too, although Hun and I decided that our current favorite character is Heir Drosselmeyer. He may be the coolest godfather ever.

 All in all the night was a success! At least I'm calling it a success because in the car on the way home they said "Next year let's go during the daytime" right before they descended into slap-happy, over-tired giggles. So I'm assuming that it was a success. 

... Now for the other side of the story...

I sent Hun and Lu out a couple of hours before we left with these simple instructions: "Get Lucie a pair of dressy shoes to wear tonight." At least I thought that was simple, apparently I was wrong because she came home with these:


Oh, for the record, Lucie is ten.

I guess the look on my face when I saw them said it all. I tried to hide how annoyed I was but it didn't really work all that well... Yep, we had about an hour before we had to leave and the choice was those or sneakers. Guess what? Push-over mom let her wear them.

However it wasn't all bad. First of all, Lu is young enough and her dress was modest enough that she looked like she was playing dress-up, as opposed to looking like a prosti-tot (I said "wasn't all bad" which is not the same thing as "good" but I'm taking non-prosti-tot as a win). Second, Lu learned a very important lesson as she hobbled around Boston: High heels are painful! She said "I never want to wear shoes like that again!" and that's fine by me. I think high heels were invented by the same evil people who brought us foot-binding. I'd rather go barefoot than wear torture devices like those. So if she came away never wanting to wear them again, then I guess it was worth it... maaaaaybe.

The other outcome of the shoe debacle is that Hun has insured that I will never, ever, EVER ask him to take Lucie shoe-shopping again. It was genius on his part. Well done, dear. I'd fist-bump you but I'd be too tempted to miss at the moment...

Anyway, despite any evidence to the contrary, we had a great time and I hope it can become a tradition! 

I will see you tomorrow,
H

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