Tag: Christmas

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Craziness

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‘Tis the season, dear readers, for yuletide merriment—and all the related craziness that accompanies this jingle-belled time of year.  Yours portly is exactly halfway through the middle of two weeks of arts-based insanity, and all is well.

Last night my school’s Middle School Drama students, as well as students from our Dance and Vocal Ensemble classes, gave their annual Christmas production.  They performed a cute little play called And a Groundhog in a Pear Tree, in which some of the less popular holidays—February 29th, April Fool’s Day, and Groundhog Day—attempt to write a new version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in order to save the big annual Christmas ball (the titular Twelve Days of Christmas have gone on strike).

This coming Friday, 13 December 2024, my Middle School and High School Music Ensemble students will give their annual Christmas Concert.  We have a great program planned.  The Foreign Language classes also get in on the fun, with renditions of various Christmas songs in their respective languages.  I always say that it’s not really Christmas until the Latin students sing “Rudolphus” (“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in Latin).

So, here’s a glimpse into the life of a Technical Director for Performing Arts during Christmas, which is crunch time in the performing arts world.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Nativity Bricks Nativity Build and Review

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Back on Epiphany (6 January 2024) I built a Nativity from Nativity Bricks, a company that makes Christian-themed LEGO® knock-offs (I also composed an Epiphany-inspired original piano composition).

Nativity Bricks Nativity - Complete

The build was very good, and the quality was as close to LEGO® as I’ve seen from knock-off bricks. Seriously, I was blown away with how excellent the pieces were, and how intuitive the instructions were to follow. Most of these cheap copycat building blocks are just that—cheap. But Nativity Bricks’ pieces actually felt like LEGO® bricks. Even Mattel’s attempt to compete with LEGO®, Mega Bloks®, don’t stack up (no pun intended—hey-oh!).

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The Ponty Christmas Special

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Yes, yes—we’re already into 2024, and at this point, Christmas 2023 is a distant, fuzzy memory.  But as I’ve pointed out in other posts this holiday season, Christmastime traditionally runs through Epiphany, on 6 January.  So, why not keep the Christmas spirit alive just a bit longer—eh?

In reading Ponty’s Christmas missive, you’ll get a sense for how much he loves the intimate coziness and spirit of Christmas.  Even more, it’s hard to miss how much he loves the intimate coziness and spirit of Tina, his beloved girlfriend/common-law wife/soulmate.  Whatever they are, they are meant for each other, just like the characters in the Hallmark movies Ponty endures each December.  Nothing says, “I love you” like letting your significant other own a hotel on Boardwalk in Monopoly.

I share something of Ponty’s resigned pessimism for the future.  Like Ponty, though, it does not stem from a place of hopelessness, but rather inspires me to dedicate myself more to the people in my life.  There’s precious little I can do about national politics (or a bunch of stoner judges in Colorado), but I can do a great deal to help those around me—even if that means losing a few games of Monopoly.

With that, here is Ponty sharing about his and Tina’s wonderful Christmas and New Year’s plans:

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Memorable Monday: Christmas and its Symbols

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Merry Christmas, everyone!  I’ve been in the Christmas spirit far more this year than in recent years, likely due to a number of factors.  I will note that the bout of cold weather we’ve in South Carolina this December has really helped—it actually feels like Christmas.  We’ve had plenty of Christmas seasons that are hot, humid, rainy, etc., and they really dampen the sense of the season, both literally and figuratively.

It being Christmas, I’m not writing my usual movie review today, but am offering up a reblog of a post from Christmas Day 2019.  With that, here is “Christmas and its Symbols“:

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Lazy Sunday CXXXII: Christmas Concert Reviews

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The major professional highlight of the Christmas season for yours portly is the annual Christmas Concert at school, a time-honored tradition that is frequently honored in the breach (leave a comment and I’ll explain what I mean by that).  It’s a huge undertaking for myself and my students, but when everything clicks, it makes for a truly magical experience.

Here are past posts about Christmas concerts from 2021-2023:

Happy Sunday—and Merry Christmas!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Traditions

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Ah, yes, Christmas.  Time to gather round the yule log with a glass of thick eggnog and sing some Christmas carols.  It’s a time of cozy good cheer—and presents!

Every family has their own Christmas traditions, some of which date back generations to their grandparents or great-grandparents.  Others are new traditions.  That’s a bit of a paradox—a “new tradition”—but all traditions started as some newfangled innovation at some point.

I’ve not lived very long—just nearly thirty-nine years now—but I have been around long enough to see the gradual (and sometimes sudden) morphing of Christmas traditions to accommodate new realities.  When I was a child, Christmas Day followed a predictable pattern:

  • Presents with my brothers and parents in the morning
  • A late, hearty breakfast at my maternal grandparents’ house, followed by more presents
  • Dinner at my paternal grandparents’ house, and again with more presents

It made for a very fun Christmas—and not just because of the presents!  My paternal grandparents had five children, each of whom had two or three kids (with the exception of one uncle, who remained a bachelor until later in life).  Some of those kids—my cousins—went on to have lots more (one of my cousins has given birth to at least ten children; we’ve lost count at this point).  But before all those great-grandchildren were born, we still had a lot of cousins running around at my paternal grandparents’ relatively small house.  It was fun.

Inevitably, we’ve grown up and started families of our own (or, like yours portly, I’ve remained a bachelor, my only “child” being an overweight purebred dog; I’ve really embraced modernity in that regard).  I’m extremely blessed to have my maternal grandparents still, but both of my paternal grandparents have passed (Papa in 2005, Mama in 2012).  Those changes have meant changes in Christmas traditions.  My plethora of cousins and their God-given fecundity have necessarily meant that the focus has shifted to their families.  My aunts and uncles are now grandparents, and they have their own Christmases.

So, what of Portly’s immediate family?  What of our yuletide celebrations?

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Phone it in Friday XLVI: Christmas Break Begins!

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At long last, Christmas Break has arrived!

I take it for granted that most people don’t get two weeks off at Christmas.  Frankly, that should be the norm; in some ways, it seems to be, at least in “white-collar” work.  When I was working my one major job outside of education, I don’t think my office phone rang for two days.  E-mails came in at a trickle.  If I had the work ethic then that I have now, I would have knocked out a lot of little tasks; instead, I read Wikipedia entries and took it easy in the mostly-empty office.

We may not appreciate the True Meaning of Christmas anymore, but there’s still a very strong, vestigial reverence for this season.  Everything shuts down for a week or two; everyone is cheery; and everybody is enjoying parties and family time.  There’s a general sense that this time is not meant for working, but for indulging in fatty foods with loved ones.  Late nights by the fire, reminiscing about departed family, remember old glories and ancient stories—that’s Christmastime.

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Memorable Monday Morning Movie Review: A Very Portly Christmas: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

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With Christmas Break looms large, I’m taking it a bit easier with the old blog.  I’ve seen some great—and not-so-great—movies lately, but they can wait a few weeks for 2024.

Instead, I thought I’d take a look back at a timeless Christmas classic of yesteryear, a film I reviewed along with Audre Myers and Ponty during the 2022 Christmas season.

That film, of course, is 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life.  It’s a film that is somehow more than a mere movie.  It’s a flick that can be judged and appreciated as a movie, of course, but it’s also one that transcends the medium, and is part of the whole Zeitgeist of Christmas.  It’s hard to separate it from the very notion of “Christmas.”

With that, here’s my review from last year:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Concert 2023 Review

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Eight days ago (Friday, 8 December 2023), my students had their annual Christmas Concert.  The Christmas Concert is one of the two marquee concert events of the school year, the other being the more amorphous Spring Concert, which can fall pretty much anywhere between March and April (and even early May).  Of the two, the Christmas Concert is my favorite, and while it’s also one of the most stressful days of the year, it’s also one of my favorites.

Our Christmas Concert follows a predictable format, consisting of performances from our choir, our World Language classes, and finally from my Middle School and High School Music Ensembles.  Historically, dance classes have performed pieces prior to the musical portion of the concert, but this year marked the first that dances were not included, as the dance class performed before the Christmas Musical, which was on Friday, 1 December 2023.

Honestly, excluding dances was a major improvement.  I have nothing (well, not much) against dance as an art form, but it was never a comfortable fit in an already-overstuffed Christmas concert format.  It also adds some minor additional headaches for yours portly, who in the past has had to move pianos in the middle of the concert to accommodate the dancers.  At the risk of editorializing (but isn’t that the whole point of a blog?), I find most of these “dance” routines to be rather distasteful and a tad lurid, although I am to report that this year’s dance performance was really exceptional, tasteful, and beautiful.

But I digress.  What of the music itself?  Let’s dig in, like a Wisconsin dad shoveling snow.

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