Wow only 12 days until Christmas!

RZBC 2005 Nutcracker Cast

For me, the Christmas season is really here once my daughters have performed in the Nutcracker and that happened last weekend. Starting with dress rehearsal on Thursday followed by a Friday night performance, two Saturday performances and a final performance on Sunday, it was a busy and exhausting weekend. I attended the Saturday night performance and helped backstage at the other three performances and the dress rehearsal. I also take a lot of photos at the rehearsal and the performances and in fact this year's promotional materials for the Nutcracker used my photos from last year.

Hannah (dressed as Mimi the Mouse) & Emily (dressed as a party guest) ready to go on stage!

Neither Emily or Hannah is advanced enough in ballet to have a starring role yet but they still have fun and are looking forward to the day when the get to do the bigger parts. They're already talking about what parts they think they may have next year.

This year Emily was a party guest and a mouse in the battle scene. The mouse was a new role for Emily. She has been a party guest every year so far. Next year, she's hoping to be able to be one of the skaters.

Hannah was a polichinelle, an angel and an enchanted butterfly. Hannah has been a polichinelle and an angel for three years now and in fact she wasn't going to be an angel this year but there weren't enough angels so Hannah volunteered to do it again. The enchanted butterflies were a new role this year as part of the Waltz of the Flowers. Hannah also was the understudy for Mimi the Mouse - Mimi is part of the party and battle scenes and is a larger role than either of the girls have ever had. The girl who actually had the role this year was unable to make either Saturday performance so Hannah actually played the role of Mimi for two shows. When she was Mimi, she wasn't able to be a polichinelle or an angel but she was still an enchanted butterfly for those shows too.

Hannah as an Angel & an Enchanted Butterfly

Now that the Nutcracker is over it's time for the school Christmas Program & Christmas Parties coming up this week and next. And, oh yeah, there's that pesky thing called shopping that I need to get done sometime before it actually is Christmas.