For nearly my entire childhood my Mom dragged (well, she dragged me but happily took my sister) to see The Nutcracker every year. I'm sure for the first Nutcracker performance I must have been excited to see it. But I quickly caught on that seeing The Nutcracker meant I had to get dressed up and for my Mom, getting dressed up meant you wore a dress. OMG really? A dress? Me? Have you met me? Wearing a dress is equivalent to having teeth pulled w/OUT any drugs to numb you!!! Not to mention that this particular 'play' is really boring. Nobody speaks! Nobody sings. And I could never stop looking at the guys 'packages' b/c those tights are....well, quite tight! How can you NOT look?
Fast forward a bunch of years. My Mom hasn't 'dragged' me to this play in quite awhile but I realized that it's actually one of my favorite things she did w/us b/c it's a tradition and I love that I could tell JoJo all about our tradition. And that's when I had the clever idea that I should pick the tradition back up and take JoJo every year to see the play where nobody speaks, nobody sings and I'm still strangely fascinated by the packages of the male dancers.
And today was the day to begin our tradition. Today I took JoJo to see The Nutcracker. Just us, a Mommy/JoJo day.
Unlike me, JoJo was THRILLED to get dressed up and I mean THRILLED! Long blue velvety (is that a word) dress w/these adorable tights and red boots. My kid was stylin! And so was every other little girl there to see this show. It's like a BIG dress up party for little girls.
Show starts, all is good. JoJo is VERY interested and has lots of questions as to who's who and what's going on, b/c remember: nobody speaks. And I can't zone out and pretend I'm watching b/c she's firing questions at me left and right so I have to pay close attention to make sure I give her the correct answer/info......that is until the end, but we'll get there in a minute.
Now it's "halftime" and all is still okay in The Land of Jordan. I have packed snacks, which she is devouring. She has questions about what's to come in the show so I read that little program thing (playbill) and give her a quick rundown of what dances are coming up. Lights blink......2nd half is about to start.
3 minutes into the 2nd half JoJo says, "Mom, how can they hold their 'talk' for so long?" Good question kid cause I'm thinking if they let their 'talk' out this show would jump up a few notches in the excitement category.
12 minutes into the 2nd half, not only is JoJo getting fidgety but majority of the kids in the theatre are getting a bit antsy and I'm absolutely one of them! It is impossible not to zone out. And then the questions start: "When are they going to be done w/this dance? What's the next dance? What happens next? Can I have more pretzels? Why are they still dancing?"
There is this one part of the show where this guy and girl pretty much spend a long time on stage dancing. They start out dancing together. Then the girl dances alone. Then the boy dances alone. Then they dance together again. Then the girl dances alone. Then the guy dances alone. At this point JoJo is about over it (I'm way beyond over it) and she says to me "Mom, how come he's still on the stage?" and w/out thinking I bust out a smart ass remark and say "I don't know, maybe he's a stage hog?" and JoJo ERUPTS and I am NOT exaggerating, she ERUPTS into a fit of laughter and this theatre is COMPLETELY silent other than the orchestra playing their gig. And of course when you know you should not be laughing you can't stop and it becomes impossible to control it. I literally had my hand over JoJo's mouth as the two of us were cracking up about the dude being a stage hog. THAT was highlight of the show where nobody speaks and nobody sings and guys show off their packages.
Now we are nearing the end of the show, except I am convinced it's not the end of the show. Somehow, at some point in my life, maybe during one of the many Nutcracker shows I've been to, I have drummed up a completely different ending in my mind. And I was so convinced of this ending that it actually felt real in my head! I even told JoJo to stay seated b/c there was no way the play was about to end even though the house lights came on and everyone around had their coats on and were heading towards the door. Damn, I hate when I swear I'm right and I'm completely wrong!
Who's seen this show? It just kinda ends. There's no wrap up of what happens when the girl wakes up from her dream. However, in my 'real' mind there is and it goes like this: she wakes up, goes to the Nutcracker which has been broken from the day before and when she picks the nutcracker up he's miraculously fixed! Happy ending, so-to-speak. I was so convinced that this takes place. We had to call my Mom for confirmation on this. She laughed at me which meant I clearly made it up. Must have been during one of those zoned out performances where nobody speaks and nobody sings and the men have ridiculous packages.
I'm gonna have to think about if this is a tradition I want my kid to suffer through.
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