in which Holiday Spirit smacks me in the face

Thursday evening, while I was toiling mindlessly on the computer, SuperHubby decided to wrap some Christmas presents and I was all WTF? Seriously, it’s not even Thanksgiving, and it’s bad enough all the stores in the land have begun blaring Holiday Muzak in my ears when I walk in the door to purchase crap we probably don’t need, now people in my house want to be festive? Giggles even got in on the whole Let’s Start Celebrating Christmas! insanity and convinced SuperHubby to rent Santa Clause Is Coming To Town & Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It is not yet time to haul out my Grinch pants, people.

Thanksgiving has not arrived yet. It may be close, as in mere days, but in my tight-ass Grinchish mentality, Christmas celebratory-type things should not commence until AFTER the stuff-yourself-stupid day better known as Thanksgiving. I am firm on this. Let’s draw some lines people. If the whole cavalcade of Christmas decorating, singing of songs, and retail overload of BUY THIS! begins before Halloween even, why is there such a stigma to leaving Christmas lights out all year long? Why not leave those blinking fuckers up year round? Constant twinkling gaiety! If all the conspiracy theorists are correct, the retail establishment could be using those twinkling lights to mind-fuck us into a shopping frenzy that would kick start the economy and send a whole new batch of participants to Hoarders Anonymous. And we wouldn’t know it until it's too late!

In my regimented holiday apathetic brain, Thanksgiving is the Holiday Kick-off event. Surviving the gauntlet of the supermarket, preparing vast quantities of food, navigating family gatherings and awkward reunions. It’s all a training prelude to the big event: Christmas. Halloween doesn’t really count, so let’s just leave that out of the mix, shall we? It's only a holiday if you’re a pagan and for those of you I say, Happy New Year, otherwise it's a dentist windfall.

When my holiday-spirited hubby wrapped some stuff for people, and sought to engage me in similar festive type thinking, my fight or flight response was triggered and he was quickly reminded of the LINE! THE LINE! DO NOT EVEN talk to me about Christmas yet! Because I am so open minded about these lines being crossed, obviously. And then he reminded me of THE SATURDAY EVENING PLAN.

The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.

Oh Yes. CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR. You read the correctly. While he’s been planning holiday outings, I have been feverishly concocting ways to avoid all holiday acknowledgment and the controller in my head had banished this themed event from my inner schedule. I swear, from the time he told me he purchased those tickets, to that reminder, my brain had denied entry of this fact. When I noticed there was writing on that date, it was gibberish. Grinch pants, people. GRINCH PANTS. I haz ‘em.

Being the Super Dad he is, after hearing Giggles say last year that she wished we could go see the Christmas Spectacular sometime, he searched the internet waves until he found the seats & the tickets he wanted. For this past Saturday.

Rockettes, here we come. Damn you. Into New York City, during Christmas season. Shouldn’t there be laws against this?

SuperHubby thrives on making holiday magic for his family. Last year, the Saturday before Christmas we bundled our cold selves into NYC to see Shrek: The Musical and it was good…and INSANE. The people, the crowds, the noise. Our pilgrimage to the Great Shining Tree was thwarted by a sea of humanity of mind boggling porportion, so we settled for glimpses from across the roadway. If someone had farted in that crowd, there would have been massive casualties, ignited by the sudden spark of human body heat too closely contained. As I consider six people an overly large crowd, that was human overload. Then we toddled, and shoved, over to F.A.O Schwartz, and waited in line to just go inside the store. Which, as mobbed as it was, was actually fun, because Giggles & I found a Golem statue, and put fake hair that had fallen from one of the stuffed animals onto the floor, into one of Golem’s nostrils and waited to see how people would react. We giggled aplenty at the looks this generated. Ace & Giggles were able to dance about on the big piano keys, as Tom Hanks did in BIG. Because it was F.A.O. Schwartz and there are some things that must be done.

So, the entire troop of us, SuperHubby, Ace, Giggles, The In-Laws, Brother In-Law & I, drove into NYC Saturday afternoon and the passage was mercifully swift. 

We strolled through Rockefeller Center and glimpsed the tree, all decked out in…scaffolding. I had always wondered how they manage to decorate those massive trees and now I know. With a shitload of scaffolding. We meandered around a few of the storefronts, lavishly decorated and animated, checking out the wares being hawked for ridiculous amounts of money. Boots $400.00, Really? A Santa Jacket for a small rat sized dog, $249.99. My dog is woefully under accessorized.

I kept falling behind the group with the camera attached to my face, as I am wont to do. It’s amazing the patience my family has, for I would delay us everywhere, snapping pictures.

Radio City Music Hall is all one would expect it to be, Lustrous, Ornate, Colorful and Regal. An old Dame full of dignity and splendor; a truly magnificent building. I have to admit to being thrilled that the the kids first experience at Radio City Music Hall was the Christmas Spectacular. Other shows there may be wonderful, but this is the hallmark, the tradition and it is exquisitely presented and triumphantly celebrated. The first & last time I had been to Radio City Music Hall was back in the mid-80’s for a Tangerine Dream concert, a time most foggy of mind. Seeing it as an adult and through the eyes of my kids, as we attended the Spectacular for the first time together, was...dare I say it?…Magical. Yes, dammit, I admit it. I was charmed and enchanted.

We had a wonderful view of the stage, the lighting infusing the interior with warm holiday red, twinkling lights on the large wreath and ornamentation outlining the stage. The music soared among the cavernous theatre, captivating in it’s rich sound and expert orchestration. The sets were ornate and lush, imagery artistically arranged and vivid. A 3-D opening sequence that made us feel like we were riding in Santa’s Sleigh, flying through the sky through the NY skyline, past a winking Statue of Liberty, were most impressive and highly unexpected. The familiar favorite Christmas music invoked a huge sense of nostalgia and a rush of holiday sentiment.

Set after set, song after song, the tug of Christmas cheer crept in. How can anyone resist a gaggle of Santa’s dancing on stage, jiggling bells to the Here Comes Santa Claus tune?
Or the perfectly choreographed March of the Wooden Soldiers?

 

It’s very, very difficult to resist the allure and charm of the Nutcracker music with dancing bears, swirling mice and panda’s (Panda’s, I say? Oh Yes, silly shuffling Panda’s!) I would have to be an ogre indeed to deny the sweetness of a delightfully impish ballerina prancing along the stage among her animal friends.

Those High Kicking Dancing Rockettes entranced Giggles and I’m sure sent Ace’s 14-year-old hormones surging, because his eyes barely strayed from the leg flashing chorus line. My In-Laws sat down the row, their entwined fingers keeping time to the music. My brother-in-law laughed out loud at some of the stage antics and humor before him. Giggles leaned this way and that to get the best view around the person in front of her, not wanting to miss a second of the show. Ace would periodically flash me a grin when the Rockettes began a new dance routine or showed up in a new, more revealing, costume. SuperHubby and I sat, side-by-side, fingers linked. Content to welcome the holiday spirit, that sense of togetherness, of family and tradition, as the music washed over us and the applauding began.