The Twenty-Four Days of Christmas: Day Fourteen

Ballet and a Movie

Day Fourteen was a very big and wonderful day.  Being the mother of a son I never had a girl to do the "girly" stuff with.  I love the ballet and decided that since I was deprived of ballet lessons myself, I would let my daughter dance for me.  Oh well!  This year I found a good friend who agreed that she would love to go with me to see the Nutcracker as long as we could take her mother and grandmother with us.  I was able to get tickets for the four of us at the school rate to the school matinee for the performance by the Alabama Ballet Company.  These folks are amazing!  The dancing, the choreography, the sets, the costumes, the theater (Samford University's Wright Center); everything was better than I had hoped for.  I found out after the fact that there are about nine different troupes in our area who perform this each year.  Alabama Ballet is the more "professional" company and they live up to this reputation.  My friend, her mother and grandmother all seemed to have a wonderful time.  I know I did!  The audience ranged from kindergarten children to a lovely lady sitting behind us who is almost 90!

That evening my sister and I finally got to go to the Alabama Theater for one of their Christmas movies.  We have been trying to do this since Christmas 2008 and each year something else happened to keep us from going.  She was very wise this year; she did not give me a ton of notice so we just did it on the spur of the moment (for me that means only 3 days notice ;>).  I had never seen the Alabama Theater before.  Oh my!!  What a gorgeous, intriguing place.  I would love to have a day (a week, perhaps?) to explore all the nooks and crannies there!  In case you are not from this area, they have one of the few remaining Wurlitzer Movie Organs left in the world.  It has a jack and comes up out of the orchestra pit when it is being played and is lowered back out of the way during the show.  There is a lot of wonderful history associated with the theater and the organ.  

So Day Fourteen was all about new traditions and making memories!