So, I have two gigs, one today and one tomorrow, at the same place (but separate checks, mind you) at The Evergreen Center Staff Family Christmas Party in Milford MA. Today's gig was the staff's family Christmas party. About 200 people, including around 80 kids ages 1-13 or so, in the facility's fine new gym which is all festively decked out in green and red, reindeer and presents, and a mighty lot of holiday cookies --- like two 8' tables chock full of gingerbread men, sugar snaps, Santa cookies, cocoa reindeer, and a whole bunch of ones with different colored sprinkles! There were at least two dozen different kinds of cookies there! Not to mention chocolate eclairs and fruit salad, too.

   They had one end of the gym set up for the show with a couple rows of chairs with mats on the floor in front of them for people to sit on. Plus, there was a big moose sitting in the basketball hoop! The entire rest of the gym was crammed with rows and rows and rows of end-to-end tables. And they really did need that many because all of a sudden the gym began to fill up fast!   

   The woman in charge had told me that she wanted me to do about a 40 minute show (I usually do an hour), and then as the starting time approached, she came back and told me that there had been a little mix up about exactly when the party was supposed to start so don't start quite yet please. So I ended up doing a 30-minute version of The Aerial Delights Show up on stilts, and by the time I sat down and took my stilts off at what is usually the mid-point in the show, I was given the 5-minute warning because Santa was here.

   So I stayed and gave out Christmas stickers and my new homemade website sticker to all the children and my flyer to interested adults while Santa passed out gifts. It was a lot of FUN as I moved around the room interacting with everyone and watching the kids open their presents... they got some really cool gifts! Every single child looked pleased as punch! (Good job, Santa!)

 

 

   Exact same location --- completely different audience.  Yesterday was the staff family party, but today was The Evergreen Center Student Christmas Party.  You see, the Evergreen Center serves student with severe develop-mental disabilities, and today was the party for their older students, roughly ages 13-22. So yesterday's audience was families with school-age children crammed into the gym... and today's party was teens with autism, mental retardation, traumatic brain injuries, etc and their staff. Same location --- very different audience --- same entertainer --- still lots of FUN!

   Teens can sometimes be a tough-sell, but this group seemed to really enjoy the first part of the show. However, when I started doing some one-on-one with some of the teens in the front like I usually do near the beginning of my shows, the crowds got a really big charge out of it. And as soon as I put one of them on the stage, that guy got more applause than I did!!! So I put a whole bunch of them on stage, and everyone had a BLAST!
   Another major difference between today and yesterday was that yesterday Santa sat on a chair in front and parents brought their kids up to him, but today Santa went around the room and delivered gifts to the students wherever they were sitting.  

   Another major difference was that yesterday when I was going table to table handing out Christmas stickers after my show, almost no adults took any, but today about 80% of the adults wanted stickers, too!
   One thing that was definitely the same as yesterday, though, was the two table packed to the hilt with cookies! 

 

 

   My lovely wife is in grad school at Simmons College learning to be a reference librarian. The program she's in is called "GSLIS West" and that stands for Graduate School of Library and Information Science Western Campus. Simmons College is actually located in Boston, but in 2001 they started a satellite program here in the Pioneer Valley at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley MA. Nancy attended one of their info sessions after hearing an ad on the radio. She was intrigued by the idea, and has just finished her second term today.

  To celebrate the season (as well as the end of the term), several people planned a party for students and staff after the last class today. It was held in a function room at the Village Commons across the street from the college. It's an interesting space that includes a raised entrance (when you walk in the doors, you're looking down into the room), a nice-sized atrium, a meeting room, a full kitchen, and bathrooms. It's not a large space, but I was told they had about 60 people packed into it earlier on.

   There were maybe half that many there when I arrived during the final hour of the party. I had a nice time meeting some of Nancy's new school friends, schmoozing with her teachers, and noticing who's clearly a librarian and who's obviously an attachment (like me). 

   They had a table in the atrium full of beer and wine... and one lonely bottle of seltzer.  Another table held two huge colorful take-out platters: one with veggies and dip and the other with fruit and whipped cream.

   But they'd asked everyone to bring cookies of some sort, so the large table that took up most of the space in the meeting room was completely filled with cookies! Nancy made some of her very, very popular Chocolate Krinkles, and they were indeed very, very popular. Several people commented to me about them.

    Regular readers may have noticed that this is the third entry in a row here that includes tables full of cookies! My best guess is that maybe it's something in the air. 
  
  
 Monday, December 14, 2009

   For the third year in a row I did a couple hours of stiltwalking "walk-around" today for the Connecticut Forum Children's Christmas Party in the Grand Ballroom at the Marriott Hotel in Hartford CT.  This is a wonderful, wonderful event.  
   Each year, the CT Forum hosts a HUGE free Christmas party for about 250 underprivileged Hartford kids --- 10 from each of the city's public elementary schools. First of all, it's during school, so these kids all get to go to a big party instead of school. Second, it's a really big deal to be selected for this. Third, it's a really fancy hotel, which is probably a first experience for most of these kids. And fourth, it's a terrific party!
   The Grand Ballroom at the Hartford Marriot is a very large room. As the kids enter at the near end of the room, the first thing they see is two rows of long tables end to end with 5 or 6 different craft project set up. Going clockwise around the room, next to that is a small table with some big thank you posters on core board for the businesses that donated to the event that all the kids got to sign. Then across the long end of the room is a low stage with stairs on each end and a big chair in the middle for Santa (who arrived with Mrs Claus shortly after I did). Beyond that several long table against the back wall piled 3-5 feet high with presents! The far end of the room is where the food is: 2 long rows of large tables going most of the width of the room filled with hot food of all sorts, fresh vegetable that kids like (I didn't see any broccoli or cauliflower), lots of fresh fruit, and several beverages to pick from. Towards the middle of the room, parallel to the food tables is a face painting station with more than a dozen face painters all set up with paints and chairs and mirrors and such. Beyond that, directly opposite Santa's throne is a guy twisting balloons and a couple of other guys teaching the kids how to spin plates. And roving around the entire room, there's Frosty the Snowman, a couple of Santa's Reindeer, and me on stilts doing high-fives with everyone and giving out Christmas stickers. Plus, there's at least 50 high school and college volunteers all wearing red t-shirts that say ELF on the front in really big letters. There is also a large contingent of staff from Target helping with the presents (which I think they donate each year). Not to mention all the hotel staff running the food area, monitering the entryways and generally helping out. All told, there were probably around 500 people in the room.
   The party only runs for two hours, so in that time the kids do pretty much everything non-stop! Each year I've done this, it's run without a hitch, the kids and the adults have a lot of FUN, and absolutely everyone is happy. So my congratulations to the CT Forum for hosting such a wonderful, wonderful event! 
 

   On the way home from Hartford, I stopped in Windsor CT and visited my dear darling daughter (because I could). She happened to be working in the front yard when I pulled in the driveway. And her 1-year-old (and all that implies) puppy Jake was there too, all anxious for my immediate attention RIGHT NOW!

   Jake got some attention (and plenty of discipline, too), but mostly, Myrrh showed me all the work that's been going on at her place. She and her brother put up a fence along her side yard a ways back. And her cousin Ben (who lives there now) has been doing sweat equity instead of rent: he's taken out their dead garbage disposal, replaced all the plumbing under the sink, and insulated the entire crawl space under the eaves... and that's just this week! Plus, Myrrh's been painting all the rooms one by one. So her new little house is looking really good.

   It was wonderful to see her again; it's been quite a while, especially because I didn't see her on Thanksgiving this year. I love you, Myrrh! Thanks for being you.

   

  

   

   

   Today, it was my privilege to entertain my lovely wife and her guests for Nancy Little's 45th Birthday Party! 

   She had a full afternoon and evening of events that she likes to do planned: at 2:30 a small group of knitters and crocheters gathered at our house for a yarn swap. Then around 3:30 they all headed down to Webs in Northampton MA (the biggest yarn store in America!) where they were met by a few more knitters and crocheters to buy more yarn. Then an hour or so later, it was over to the Tunnel Bar in Northampton for before dinner drinks. And then at 6:30 the official party itself started at our house. The invitation said that the party would last until about 10:30 (which is when Nancy officially turns into a pumpkin) but she ended up staying up waaaaaay past her bedtime and the party didn't end until around 1:00am.
   It was a pot luck, so there was tons of terrific food. Nancy specifically asked for wine and chocolate, so there's were lots of those two items, too. Plus we had a game table going all night, chocolate birthday cup cakes made by our dear friend Beki, I led some party games for about half an hour in the middle, lots of yakking and schmoozing, a bit of spontaneous music in there at one point, and other party sorts of goings on. 

   All told, a total of around 30 people helped celebrate Nancy's birthday throughout the day. She was very pleased. At the end of all the day's activities after she finally crawled into bed around 1:15, she very sleepily said with eyes closed and head on pillow, "I had a really good time today."

 

 

   We usually go out for dinner on her birthday, but this year she surprised me by asking me to take her out for lunch. We still went to the same restaurant: Paul & Elizabeth's in Northampton MA. But their lunch menu is rather different from their dinner menu. so it was a really nice change of pace.

   And on her actual birthday, I want to thank my lovely wife Nancy for being such a wonderful woman, a terrific partner, a great housemate, an interesting person, one smart cookie, a good kisser, a sharp dresser, an appreciative mate, a good interior decorator, a Curly Girl, a fair compromiser, a big hearted woman, an awesome wife, and my BFF. Thanks for being born, my love!

 

 

   This evening, Nancy & I packed up the truck and then went to a delightful Christmas Eve service at my cousin-in-law Rev. Sarah's church. The church was packed with what's known in some ministerial circles as "C & E Christians" --- which means people who only attend services on Christmas and Easter. There was lots of special music, including the church bell choir, lovely harp music by the Delsie girls, and several pieces by the church choir.
   After the service, we drove north to Nancy's folk's house in E Burke VT (about 20 miles south of Canada) for a long-anticipated Christmas vacation.

 

 

   Today, a bunch of the Little clan gathered at sister Wendy's house even further north in Brownington VT for a FUN-filled Christmas. There were the usual assortment of snacks, presents, dinner, music, schmoozing, and all the joking around that one would expect from a friendly family gathering. It was great to all hang out together.

 

 

   Nancy and I went back to Wendy & Jon & Chloe's house by ourselves today for a delightful visit without the parents. (Not that I mind the Little parents, mind you.)

   The visit included most of the items I listed yesterday (except the presents). Plus we went for a nice walk down to their pond and played on the ice for a while. (photo left) Even the cat and dog got in on it! Later, we spent a good hour just before sunset sledding on the great sledding hill they have behind their house. Nancy had a cinematic moment where, through no fault of her own, she almost crashed into the compost bin but in true James Bond fashion she managed to swerve and ditch the sled at the last possible moment with only about an inch to spare and come out of the whole thing unscathed.

   It was FUN to hang out with Wendy & Jon & Chloe at their place again. 

   Then Nancy & I drove back down to the parents' place because her brother Pete and his daughter Ivy (photo right) had arrived from Michigan. 

   We had fun together with more snacks, more presents, dinner, schmoozing, etc., etc., etc. with even more Littles all in one place.

    It was really great to see Pete & Ivy. We don't get to see them very often any more since they moved to Michigan a couple years ago, so we always make it a point to try to get up there whenever they return to their little cabin on the edge of the woods up in the Northeast Kingdom.

 

 

   Got up this morning and left E Burke around 11:30 and drove south on Rte 91 all the way back down to Exit 4 in Putney, where I turned west and drove across the East-West Rd (which ends at an awesome  covered bridge!), up Rte 30 a couple of miles, and then west again on Dover Rd (which includes another terrific covered bridge!) all the way to The Grand Summit Hotel at Mount Snow in W Dover VT where I did two pretty well-attended performances in front of the fireplace in the lobby before driving the 3-1/2+ hours back up to E Burke. It was a 12-1/2 hour work day with 7+ hours of driving!

   Whew!

 

 

   We were planning on driving home today, but my wicked smaht wife had checked the weather and discovered that a major 24-hour snowstorm was rolling in. And since we didn't really want to drive through it, we decided to stay another day. (*Nice!*) So instead of driving three hours south after lunch, we drove 20 minutes north to Pete's little cabin in Island Pond VT and spent the night. 

   Pete's driveway is about a half mile long, unpaved, much of it uphill, all of it unplowed, so we parked at the bottom and hiked up, pulling our stuff (or daughter! (see photo below)) behind us on sleds. It was a wonderful walk through the snow... and pretty good exercise too, because I was drenched with sweat by the time we reached the cabin!

   We had a wonderful time with Pete and Ivy. I don't remember exactly what we did each day, but there was sledding, creating art, lots of snacks and food, doing chores --- I split more wood for the wood stove --- and all sorts of other things. A terrific extra day added on to our vacation!

   And right on schedule as predicted by the National Weather Service, the storm ended Tuesday afternoon around 3:00, we packed up the sleds, headed down the hill, and hit the road home.

   All in all, a wonderful Christmas vacation, a terrific visit with Nancy's family, and a really good time in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom! Hurray! 

 

 

   It's back at The Grand Summit Hotel at Mount Snow for their annual New Year's Eve party in the Grand Ballroom this evening. What a great party! There were about 250 people including at least 75 children; a HUGE hot and cold buffet that took up the entire middle swath of the room; a hot soup bar; an amazing dessert & coffee tableaux; a champagne bar; a dj blasting out the tunes in front of the dance floor; a guy with live animals, including a gecko, 2 chinchillas, a large box turtle,  and several others I didn't get to see, plus he had some cool "animal accessories" like a HUGE moose antler, box turtle shells, a coyote skull, and more; and then there was me on stilts blasting all the kids (and most of the adults, too!) with my AirZooka as they came in and going table to table and greeting all the guests and telling the kids what was going on tonight for the first hour, then doing a half-hour show, and then setting up my Ribbon Dancer Factory for Project: Ribbon Dancer for a good hour more. 

   Everyone had a great time; it was FUN to see a few of the regular guests return, and it was no surprise to see the terrific staff at the hotel do their usual excellent job. Special thanks to Jason --- the guy in charge of the party --- for a job very well done!

 

      

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