The Nutcracker (Lite)

Miss D and I went to the Nutcracker tonight. It's the "lite" version put on by the dance school that Miss D went to last year. The program lasts a little over an hour, no intermission. They have about 60 kids, from ages 6 to 18, who appear in the performance in various roles, and then they have guest dancers come in to dance the adult roles. This year, the only guest dancer was a male to dance the Prince. This was the first year the school had a ballerina who could dance the role of Clara. Very exciting!

Anyway, I made this a surprise for Miss D this year. Picked up the tickets earlier in the week and told her I had a surprise for her on Saturday. Almost killed the poor girl to have to wait until 3:00 on Saturday afternoon. We got ourselves all dolled up, drove into town, and were almost into the parking lot of the high school auditorium when she finally figures it out -- Mama, we're going to the NUTCRACKER! Yup!

She was so excited she could barely sit still for the 10 minutes before the show got started. I think they held it for a few minutes because of the big snow storm outside -- fourth year in a row they've had a huge snow storm on the day the dance school does the Nutcracker.

Of course, I have no pictures of the dancing itself, but the production was lovely. Miss D adored the Snow Queen, and of course Clara. I was particularly impressed with the Flower Queen and the Gingerbread Children (so darn cute!).

Here are a couple of photos of Miss D all dolled up for our big outing:





Afterwards, we went to dinner at Ghidotti's... it was so cute the way the waitress doted on Miss D and made it a very special dinner for her. Then we went shopping to get a present from Miss D for Daddy and sisters. I think it will kill her to keep those a secret until Christmas morning!