holiday music

morgana and i went uptown to her ballet school for the mid-year evaluation meeting and passed a lot of holiday music along the way. you always know when it's christmas in nyc.

morgana was sad because le pain had no more hot chocolate, which she was hoping to have before tonight's rehearsal.

three kings day and my knitting project

most everyone in the city has returned to their regular routine. however, we are still celebrating the twelve days of christmas and today was epiphany. it's not easy maintaining the holiday as the girls get older, as dance commitments and travel opportunities and field trips arise. luckily, greg is usually able to take off from work, which always makes it feel like a holiday. today we had a performance at the new victory theatre. new dutch theatre performed rumplestiltskin and greg went with chanda. morgana was supposed to attend, but lori belilove asked her to dance at the town school with several other duncan dancers, so she left the apartment at 7 am.

morgana and chanda first investigated beneath the tree to see if there might be a gift for them. each found a book and a needlework craft: the arabian nights; and the dragonfly pool (by eva ibbotson).

with everyone gone (korrina is still in buffalo), i had a breakfast to myself . .

with jack for company in the armchair across from me.

here is this year's three kings project. i've been working on a shawl for chanda. i still have about a quarter of the way to go. the yarn is very fine and i'm up to 400 stitches for this section. it'll cut back down to 200 when i get to row 6 of the pattern . . but i still have three rows to go of 400 tiny stitches. it has taken me longer than i thought, and i still have two more to make! i'm enjoying it, however, and i think it'll look beautiful when completed. i'll give more details when i finally finish this. i'm still trying to keep the girls in the dark about the final outcome. do you see the lovely stitch markers? christine made them for me!

what christmas music do we like to listen to? (well, morgana, chanda and i. and korrina? greg likes to claim that he doesn't care for christmas music). we have folk songs from the seeger family, a time-life treasury of "pop" christmas songs, the vienna boys choir, a jazz piano christmas, nomad christmas (a nice middle eastern jazzy touch to christmas songs) and an italian christmas . . with fun "pop" christmas tunes italian style.

in the evening i lit the little candle house janet made for me last year.

we had our traditional epiphany dinner of wild alaskan salmon, brown and wild rice, and steamed asparagus with butter sauce, followed by desserts of peppermint bark, biscotti, gingerbread cookies, and french chocolates.

and we played yahtzee afterwards! (after we sang a few christmas songs--we three kings, and here we go a wassailing--and morgana played her guitar) and even though the game did not go well for me at the beginning (i almost cheated, after which i almost quit) i ended up getting a yahtzee at the very end and winning! actually, i haven't gotten a yahtzee in YEARS so it was quite fun. (i used a score sheet from several years ago . . it's interesting to see what one's results were in the past). i'd like to go to sleep now, but i'm waiting for korrina to call and say she and her friend are back in buffalo from having visited toronto. i neglected to check with her what time she thought she would get home. but . . she probably wouldn't have known the answer to that question anyway. she lives too spontaneously these days. i think i remember doing that . . happy twelfth day of christmas!

(we also read the three kings chapter from mary's little donkey last night, and tomie depaola's the three wise men this evening).