Behind the Sugar Plum Fairy -- Virtual Advent Blog Tour -- 6th year

Welcome, Virtual Advent Tourists!

This is my sixth year participating, and I'm so glad that Marg and Kelly have launched such a wonderful holiday tradition into the blogosphere. It continues to be a highlight of my season.

I blogged previously during the 2009 Virtual Advent Tour about my love of ballet and The Nutcracker in particular. I can never get enough of it!

Is The Nutcracker a Christmas tradition for you, as it is for me?

Are you lucky enough to live in a large city with a professional dance company? Is a live performance of this ballet classic one of the things your soul can't live without every year, as it is for me?

I have a large collection of Nutcracker-themed Christmas ornaments, including a Clara, the Mouse King, a Sugarplum Fairy, some Snowflakes, some Waltz of the Flowers figures and a Harlequin doll. I'm always looking to add more.

Aside from writing and film, ballet is my truest passion. I studied ballet when I was a younger, uninjured version of me. When dancing myself was no longer an option, I was lucky enough to get a job as an usher at the theatre that was at that time the home of the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto.

For eight years, my Christmas season revolved around the performances of The Nutcracker, and I got to see so many wonderful behind-the-scenes aspects of what it means to be the Sugarplum Fairy in a production such as this.

For those of you who may already have your tickets for this year's performance, who may hum many of the pieces from the score by Tchaikovsky -- here is a backstage peek at one of the women who dons the famous tutu and tiara of the Sugarplum Fairy. 

"When I'm onstage, I'm not really thinking about the steps anymore," says principal dancer Heather Ogden. "I want to be hearing the music and letting my body remember the steps by itself and move with the music, and enjoy the story and bring a character to life."

"The Nutcracker in many companies is the staple at Christmastime, and it's rare to come back to a role every year. So it's really nice to do the Sugarplum Fairy, because you get to revisit it so often. I've found a level of comfort where I feel like I can really enjoy telling the story."

Ruth Bartel, resident cutter in the National Ballet of Canada's wardrobe department, gives an in-depth look at how a tutu is built: "We build our costumes to last for twenty-five to thirty years...A tutu something like this, the Sugarplum, could be as much as thirty-five hundred dollars."

Heather Ogden is the featured Sugarplum Fairy in this piece.

~~~

Did you always wonder what it would feel like to be the Sugarplum Fairy?

Virtual Advent Blog Tour 2012

 

Welcome everyone to A Piece of My Mind!

This is my fifth post for the Virtual Advent Blog Tour. I came across it in 2007, my first year of blogging. In the five years since then, it has been a favorite tradition for me here. So it's with a special sense of excitement that I share with you the most incredible tale of wishes coming true.

Many people, including me, like to usher in the new year with intention. I make a point of including symbolic hopes for the year to come in our celebration. For example, even if our fun is casual and includes just my mom, my husband and myself, we deck ourselves in bling and use the best china and crystal, toast in the new year, open the front door to let the new year in and the back door to let the old year out. That's my mom, below, welcoming 2010. 

 

 

Last year the three of us had a Russian New Year's celebration. Why Russian, you may ask? I thought you were French Acadian.

 

Well, once upon a time - 28 years ago, actually, my sister and I made friends with a Russian cadet from a marine college who sailed into Halifax Harbour aboard the tall ship Kruzenshtern as part of the 1984 Tall Ships Festival. 

 

 

 

You can read about this romantic tale here:

13 Things About the Most Romantic Story You'll Ever Hear

The Iron Curtain was a pretty big obstacle, back in the day. Although we made plans to visit him in his home town of Yaroslavl, he wrote that he’d been drafted into the army and would be there for two years. This was in the late 80s during Russia’s conflict with Afghanistan.

After that, we lost contact with Rashid Kamalov and could only wonder what had become of him.

My love of Russian culture (which had brought us to see the Kruzenshtern in the first place) continued unabated over the years. Of course my passion for all things ballet can never get enough of Russian dancers. I love Russian films, Russian actors, Russian singers and the Russian language.

This led to discovering the completely magical set of New Year’s films, Ironiya sudby and the sequel. So last year, we rang in 2012 with a duplication of the feast shown in those films with a combination of my mom cooking up some dishes, and with us ordering dishes from a Russian restaurant across the harbor in Halifax.

 

 

 

Then we watched the movie.

 

 

We used all the best dishes, the best crystal, the best prosecco from the imported wines store.

 





In my mind was the intention that I would one day make my way to St. Petersburg in Russia to see the Mariinsky Ballet perform at the Mariinsky theatre.

The unspoken longing to hear from Rashid was just a part of me. It was part of everything Russian that I loved.

Fast forward to the late spring. I stumbled upon a fantastic Russian historical series Bednaya Nastya on You Tube which I then watched on viki.com with subtitles. My husband became utterly addicted to it and watched it with me. It was awesome.

My comprehension of Russian really grew. I bought a few learn-to-speak-Russian books, kept watching Russian films, made a Russian-song playlist and listened to it constantly.

In August I appeared as an author at Fan Expo in Toronto with my two releases, SAINT SANGUINUS and BOUND BYDRAGONSFYRE. I held a contest for local Toronto book store gift certificates and contacted the winners by email.

I kept checking my spam folder in case the whole contest thing was driving their replies into that folder.

Otherwise I never would have checked my spam folder.

I never would have seen this staring at me:

Рашид Камалов Hi my dearest girles!!! I very happy get your m...

That’s right. The word that looks sort of like ‘pawned’ is really ‘Rashid’ in the Cryllic alphabet.

All my blogging and all of my longtime readers’ hopes that we would one day reunite, all of the searching online and sending out hopeful ‘Is this you?’ messages

CAME TRUE

Rashid is now my Facebook friend.

For realz.

 



 

My holiday wish for all of you this year: meet 2013 with intention. The universe is listening.

Thursday Thirteen - 237 - 13 Things That Make Up My Christmas, for the 2011 Virtual Advent Tour

Welcome to A Piece of My Mind, where Thursdays are devoted to all things thirteen. I've been taking part in this meme for five years, and today's stop along the Virtual Advent Tour is my 237th list of thirteen things.













1 - The Christmas choir concert. This has been a part of my Christmas since I was a kid, and not having a concert in which to sing this year left a huge hole. I had to leave out going to choir last year in order to finish my debut novel. Something had to give, but I can tell you that during choir concert season I dearly wished it had not been that. Can't wait to go back.


















2 - The Nutcracker ballet. I'm a passionate ballet freak, and I'll never tire of this Christmas ballet, not even after having seen it live about 75 times when I worked at the theatre where the National Ballet of Canada performed.

In fact, my sister and I will be attending the live broadcast of the Bolshoi's version of The Nutcracker this Sunday, courtesy of Empire Theatres special events program.













3 - Unwrapping the decorations to put on the tree always feels so magical. This is one of the first ornaments I ever bought.


















4 - Decorating the tree. This one went up when we lived in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia for two years, keeping an eye on my late gram when she first began to need someone living in the house with her. This particular tree brings me very fond memories, as my husband and I had a very happy time decorating it that year.













5 - Wearing Christmas clothes. Now's the time, folks! Dig it out!













6 - The Sisters Annual Christmas Lights Decorating Party. We always turn the outdoor decorating into a party, accompanied by Frank Sinatra Christmas songs playing on the front deck, wine in our mugs and lots of laughing.













7 - Christmas sugar cookie decorating party. We've been having these get-togethers since my sister and I were in elementary school. That ends up being four decades of cookie masterpiece making.












8 - Christmas parties at work. I'll be at mine this afternoon, in fact. The one pictured above was a Christmas dinner at the Toronto Simpsons flagship store in the formal dining hall in the late 80s.













9 - Christmas Eve dinner - my aunt's seafood newburg. SO delicious. I literally begin looking forward to the next Christmas Eve dinner the moment I finish the current one.












10 - The musical part of Christmas Eve. I come from a musical family, and after all the catching up, eating dinner and drinking wine, we head into the music room for an enormous amount of fun. This was a piece my mom, my sister and I sang a few years ago, a version of The Night Before Christmas.













11 - Being with family. This year we'll be with my crew, so I won't see my husband's family for Christmas. I'll wave at all of them, pictured above--love you and miss you!













12 - Christmas morning breakfast. My sister is actually looking forward to this most of all. Lots and lots of scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, cheese, sometimes special homemade pecan waffles. Mmm.













13 - The crazy pile of presents. Every year we say we're not going to go overboard. And every year we end up with a pile that threatens to dwarf the tree. This shot was taken in the early 90s at my sister's Scarborough, Ontario apartment.

To visit the other stops on today's tour, drop by:

Chelsea at Book Maven's Blog

Michelle at The Christmas Spirit

Nancy at Bookfoolery and Babble

Thanks to Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Kelly at The Written World for once again hosting one of my favorite holiday traditions.

You can read my previous Virtual Advent Tour posts here:

2010

2009

2008

Virtual Advent Tour - 2010 - My 1000th Post!!

Welcome to this year's edition of the Virtual Advent Tour. The tour has been running for five years now, and this is my third year participating.

As a lifelong Christmas devotee, I was in an odd place during the Christmas of 2007, when I first came across this blog event. My dad had passed away nine months earlier, my grandmother had just passed away at the beginning of that December, and my father-in-law was in the last month of his life.

I was a little numb. A part of me reached out for Christmas, while another part of me could only watch Christmas stumble past. When I found this blog tour of other Christmas enthusiasts, writing about all the things that made this season special for them - it was a lifeline to sanity. It helped me to celebrate even in the midst of my sorrow.














So now I'd like to invite you to the most special night of the year for my family - Christmas Eve.

My family and my cousin's family grew up together, more as one group of eight rather than two groups of four. We were constantly at one another's homes, so the evening of Christmas Eve needed to be super special.

We began dressing up in our most formal wear for this biggest night on our social calendar. When we were kids, we settled in to watch the Christmas TV specials that were on, like Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Grinch and A Charlie Brown Christmas.

That's me above, waiting for my second wind, with my cousin Julianne looking on, and our Gram. We're pictured in Auntie's living room, where the adults gathered for drinks and to chat while the kids played around the house and chatted our little-kid chats. We always knew we had progressed into a new era of our lives when we gravitated toward sitting with the adults rather than hanging out in the TV room with the kid hors d'oeuvres of cheesies and pop.


















As we got older, we stopped eating the kids' meal of hotdogs and french fries, and we discovered the wonders of my aunt's seafood bisque, a dish I dream about all year long.














She's usually busy stirring it as we arrive, because it can't be left unattended even for a second.
































Spouses were folded into the mix, and new little cousins as they appeared.





















My musical family began having a musical Christmas Eve. It's an East Coast tradition to have impromptu musical parties erupting in homes all over this region. But we do rehearse just a tad. We try to keep our performance pieces as secret from each other as we can so there will be a bit of a surprise for everyone.
























There's always the possibilty that we try to dress up on this special night as a way of keeping the silliness factor under control.

But as you can see, it only ever meets with mixed success.



































This year we'll be in Toronto to celebrate with my husband's family.

*insert excited squeal*

But the East Coast Christmas Eve will carry on while we're enjoying the love and hugs from our Big City family and friends.

From our celebration to yours, may you have the Merriest of Christmases.

Thank you to Kailana @ The Written World and Marg @ Adventures of an Intrepid Reader for hosting this beautiful event. ((hugs)) to you!

I'm blogging at The Popculturedivas today - scroll down for 5 on Friday

Today at The Popculturedivas I'm posting about blog events like the Virtual Advent Tour.

I'll be joining the tour on Dec. 14th - hope to see you there.