a peek inside the fishbowl

We agreed to meet at Mooney’s Bay on a Saturday morning. It was sunny and clear, and unfortunately, The Windiest Day Ever. We were blown all over the place. But they were real troopers and stuck it out with me for over an hour.

It is always very hard to narrow one shoot – one family – down to a handful of photos.

Here goes nothin’:

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Although the Santa Claus parade is a hard act to follow I wasn’t too worried. I had something awesome up my sleeve for day six.

The NAC (they are a Fishbowl sponsor!) gave us tickets to see the Nutcracker. We went on Sunday for the evening performance … and somehow I managed to keep it a secret until Sunday morning.  

Mark asked me when I last saw the Nutcracker and I couldn’t quite remember. Maybe it was when I was 16 on that date which shall live in my memory forever.  Anyway, it didn’t matter when I’d seen it. The Nutcracker is not like watching repeats of The National. There are new things to see! Besides the girls were keen. And so was I!

We arrived early. The NAC is always a good place to people watch, especially if it’s an evening performance. For awhile we had a good view of the foyer from upstairs and the tiny people below. 

(Not to be judgy but who wears yoga pants to the NAC??)

If you were there, did you happen to see two girls wearing Santa hats? The only two bright red velvet caps with furry white pompoms in the entire room? Ha. That was us. So I guess I can’t really comment about appropriate clothing choices, can I? ;)

Anyway, there were also some pre-show activities we wanted to check out before the show as well.

There was a fun little dressup table complete with costumes befitting the Nutcracker theme: swords, wands, masks and teeny tutus. (That’s Emma there on the right, with the cape and feathery mask.)

The activities were skewed to younger children (which I wondered about, seeing as though this was an evening showing) and included a couple of stamping/colouring tables. Personally I was hoping to see some kind of large visual interpretation of the show we were about to see (a giant kid-friendly cheat sheet?) … maybe with photographs of the different characters and/or the children who got the coveted roles. (Unless it was there and we missed it?)

The show itself was lovely. Watching it at the NAC was truly like watching a dream. The interpretation of this particular production was new to me. I thought it was was really creative. Perhaps it even made the Nutcracker more relevant and dare I say, interesting to a contemporary audience.

This, from the NAC website:

This gorgeous version of the classic tale is a child’s Christmas fantasy. Nutcracker features Filbert the dancing bear, cavorting mice, a sugar-plum fairy, and a magically growing Christmas tree — all wrapped in a turn-of-the-century Canadian setting. Featuring choreography by Nina Menon and Galina Yordanova, scenery by Brian Perchaluk, 175 original costumes by Paul Daigle, Tchaikovsky’s timeless music, and dozens of local children. Nutcracker is a visual and musical spectacle, a holiday confection which preserves the best of the Russian tradition and spices it up with uniquely Canadian ingredients.   

Best moment: one of my children wondered aloud why the male ballet dancers don’t wear “real pants.”

Let’s hear it for the mouths of babes … !

Speaking of babes, we loved the children in this production, many of whom were local kids. Oh, they were adorable, dressed in period costume, and as cavorting mice (“Look at their tails mummy! And their funny bums!”), and as angels.

Both girls recognized a lot of the music, which I think is pretty darn cool. It is interesting how music that is over a century old is still so recognizable. (Talk about longevity!)

For many people (including myself) the Nutcracker suite will be forever associated with Disney’s Fantasia. I loved this sequence when I was a kid. And I am physically unable to NOT think about mushrooms when I hear the Chinese Dance.

Sadly (for me) I wasn’t very informed as to which song was which. I think this one is called the Waltz of the Flowers, I’d whisper. And when the next number started I wondered if that really was the Waltz of the Flowers. Clearly I need a brush up on my Tchaikovsky.

I was happy that the NAC published a summary of the story of the Nutcracker in the programmes. I knew the general idea of the story (there’s a girl named Clara and she receives a toy nutcracker for Christmas etc …), but there were a couple of parts that we needed to clarify. Such as, what were all those international people doing in the dream forest exactly?

There is a really interesting Wikipedia entry about the Nutcracker here. Scroll down to “synopsis” to learn a bit about how the storyline differs in different productions.

It is fascinating that the basics are kind of the same everywhere, but each company puts their own spin on the story. I know this is glaringly obvious, but here is a story that is told without words, just with dance, music, costumes (not to mention set design) and body language. We talked a lot about how that can be done. The only thread binding them all together is the long ago work of a brilliant composer.

I think we all got a lot out of our visit to the NAC. Best of all, it started to snow when we left the theatre … a truly magical ending to a magical evening.

We’re really getting into the Santa stuff now! The letters are mailed and Christmas is on track here at the casa Fishbowl.

Day four (Friday, which was a PD day) was about helping Nana and Papa decorate their tree, put together a gingerbread house, AND sleep over at their place while Mummy and Daddy went out on a date which included sushi and a work-related gathering. For those of you – ahem, MARLA – who follow my annual holiday shoe dilemma I will confess that I bought new shoes, got in the car, drove a few blocks towards the party, and then circled back home after I decided that I should wear boots instead. My shoe issues never end! :)

Day five (Saturday) was about the Ottawa Help Santa Toy Parade, a great new addition to our family advent.

We parked on the street at Kent and Slater and walked towards Parliament Hill, ending up just shy of the Hill itself (but still within view).

I have to confess that I was somewhat worried about the crowds. If you’ve ever been to Canada Day on Parliament Hill you know what I’m talking about. But it wasn’t like that at all. It was entirely manageable, even with little kids. I saw a lot of kids in strollers and wagons and everyone had a spot to see.

It was really fun. I took all of my own advice (and that of the moms I talked to beforehand): we brought a new toy to donate as well as some coins, brought a thermos of hot chocolate and we all bundled up as much as we could. Even though it wasn’t even that cold out we totally froze. Our bodies just cannot generate enough heat when we’re standing still!

We gave our toy right at the beginning. I welled up when I saw the gigantic trailer full of donations – knowing that it was only HALF of the toys that were going to be donated that night (because we were at the halfway point.) I was thinking of all the joy those gifts are going to bring to local families. Honestly Ottawa, you rock.  

The rest of the time was devoted to float watching.

I didn’t take photos of ALL the floats, but as I looked over my photos this morning I realized there were some clear winners (keeping in mind that this is a community parade, not Macy’s Thanksgiving, so the floats are a little more humble):

My pick for the “Best Marketing” and “Make me Laugh out Loud” category:

If you look carefully at the plastic dome on top of the car you will see (presumably) the Garlic King himself, waving to his legion of fans.

I’m not entirely sure what the dome was supposed to represent. Was the king trapped in a snowglobe? Was he a toy king packaged up for sale for Christmas? Was this a replica of the Popemobile? Nonetheless, BRAVO TO THE GARLIC KING. I have nothing but respect for someone who names himself after the bulb of such a pungent (albeit delicious) perennial.

(Mark turned to me awhile afterwards and told me he was craving a shawarma.)

Tied for the “invokes the most family discussion” category is the War Amps float:

… complete with the scary robotic alien child that never failed to freak me out as a child. What’s more, they had a pretend train coming out the side of the float, bright lights and loud train whistle and all, you know, because it’s fun to pretend that we might get hit by a train. A small reminder to PLAY SAFE EVERYONE!

In all seriousness this was one of the best floats at the parade in terms of detail and production value. And the kiddies they were transporting were beaming and full o’ Christmas spirit. And they were handing out candy canes. Yay!

The other float that tied for the “invokes the most family discussion” category was this one:

One of my daughters leaned in and asked me to explain the “Miss Teen” concept. Have we really never discussed beauty contests before? Oy.
 
Winner of the “Most Ironic” category, was the fire juggling act positioned directly behind one of the antique fire engines:

Anyway, yes, the floats were good. But there was one that we really wanted to see, and that was the big guy himself:

We had an extra long visit with Santa. There was something wrong with his float! He stalled in front of us for quite some time.

I bet you’re wondering, how many fire fighters does it take to fix Santa’s sleigh?

Here’s the answer:

We weren’t worried. Santa was in capable hands. We were just happy to have the opportunity to gaze upon Santa a little longer, and, guess what? He let people touch his jingle bells.

After Santa left no one stuck around to see what floats came afterwards. We didn’t either, but just happened to see them as we made our way back to the car. I think the street-cleaners should be decked out with Christmas lights too. Don’t you?

For day six (today), we have something extra special planned. I’ll write more about it tomorrow!