The last few weeks have gone by like a whirl-wind as I’m sure it has for many of you. I’m just beiginning to catch my breath and decide which of all our family Christmas traditions are really worth it. Guess I’m a bit sentimental because so far nothing pops up as a possible cut for next year. Passing on family traditions is very important to me.
On Christmas Eve, my oldest grandchild teased me about becoming a Great Grandmother. I smiled and hugged him, “But I’ve always been a great grandmother.” He couldn’t argue with that.
My writing has been mostly Christmas cards and last minute shopping lists. But now I’m ready to get back to my real world! I’ve read two excellent books this month, Engaging Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn and Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen. Usually I read more books in a month, but we had more guests and parties than usual, and, of course, more parties to attend.
We attended a John Tesh Christmas Concert at the local university concert hall. It was spectacular. The best concert I’ve ever seen anywhere! He is multi talented, travels with a twelve piece orchestra, and engaged the audience, he even gave two I-Pads to audience members during his show. I’ve never seen an entertainer do that before, most of them just take-take-take and mock our small town in the process. Mr. Tesh not only remembered where he was, he even darkened the stage and turned the auditorium lights on, making the audience the stars. All onstage lit their new Zippo lighters and held them high, moving them in time with piped in music. Awesome!
We watched It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra, probably for at least the 25th time and amazingly each year I notice some small nuance that I’d missed in previous viewings. It is truly a classic and we love it! On December 26th Christmas Vacation brought laughter to our home again with it’s slap-stick silliness. Interestingly, Frank Capra III was the director, movie genius defintely runs in that family. We also watched A Christmas Story on TV, another one that never fails to make us laugh. Of course, when the grandchildren stayed over we watched Elf, always fun! Geez, they’ve watched it so often, they can recite the lines throughout the entire movie.
We saw The Hobbit at the theater and it was not our cup of tea. At all. We went on recommendation of friends who obviously have a very different taste in entertainment. This afternoon we saw Jack Reacher at our local theater and loved it. Shot in Pittsburgh, an action movie that proved once againTom Cruise is an exceptional actor. Having Robert Duvall in a support role certainly didn’t hurt a bit.
I wish each of you the very best in 2013. Till next time, remember life is too short for bad books…and really for doing anything you don’t have to do IF it doesn’t bring you joy!
Later, Ann