Have a Cool Yule! (Suzanne Forster)

Before I give you the secret to a Cool Yuletide, let me wish you all the blessings of the holiday season wherever you happen to be at this moment and however you’re celebrating. May 2008 be your best year ever, may it be a new beginning, and may it bring some much-needed peace, prosperity, hope, and especially joy to the world.

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, the big day is finally here. By the time you read this, it will be December 25th in most time zones, so by now you must be done with the decorating, shopping, baking, and all the other frantic preparations. I hope you still have enough energy to enjoy the day! I’m dragging a bit and ready for a long winter’s nap, even as I write this on Christmas Eve, but that old familiar excitement is there, and I’ll probably be up at midnight, waiting for the weatherman to announce an unidentified flying object up there in the skies, coming from the direction of the North Pole.

I finished a book recently, so I’ve been on a break and having a few holiday adventures and misadventures. I’m usually writing my way through Christmas and doing most of my shopping online, but not this year. I actually braved the malls and the swap meets and the half-off door-buster sales, and I have to tell you, I’d honestly forgotten what a crazy, bipolar time of year it is. I mean, it’s just wild out there. People are either upbeat and full of holiday cheer or they’re aiming their cars at you and cussing you out. Probably too much cheer in those cases—or just the frustration of so much pressure to live up to the staggering expectations of this season. Why do we always take on so much this time of year?

I intentionally scaled down, knowing I might be tempted to try and make up for all the years of being on deadline. Shopping was fun because I haven’t been out amongst them in years, and I was able to start reasonably early and get everything mailed off. I also had two most excellent adventures. I went to a performance of Don Giovanni at the L.A. Opera, courtesy of a dear friend, who was given tickets as a Christmas present. Plus, I also got to see Cirque de Soleil, after at least five years of breathless anticipation.

Don Giovanni was strange and fascinating. I hadn’t been to the opera since my college days, so I really didn’t know what to expect. I was familiar with the story of Don Juan, the legendary lothario, who loves ‘em and leaves ‘em, and much worse. In this version, inspired by Moliere’s play, he actually rapes a woman, kills her father, and is dragged down to hell before the final curtain falls.

It’s ranked among the great operas of all time and considered one of Mozart’s best works. The singers were glorious, especially Don Juan who got rave reviews and sounded as sensual and dangerous as he looked. Talk about an unrepentant rake. It wasn’t hard to see why he ended up in the bowels of hell. What surprised me was the opera’s nontraditional staging. The set looked like something out of a sci fi movie, very dark, spare, and sinister. Most of the effects were created by lighting, some clever props, and a mysterious, seemingly omnipresent fog from which zombies materialized at the end. I still get the shivers thinking about it. Good stuff.

I knew Cirque de Soleil was going to be fabulous. Unfortunately, I was so excited I showed up on Saturday when I actually had tickets for Sunday. At least I was a day early rather than a day late! It was held at the local fairgrounds, but because we showed up on the wrong day and there was no signage, we couldn’t find the parking area and tramped for what felt like miles through parking lots and an entire swap meet, only to be told by the sweet, apologetic lot attendant that we had the wrong day. Okay, so at least the next day we knew exactly where to go—and the performance was easily worth two trips.

I think I was most impressed by the man who danced, cavorted, and did hand stands on a filmsy, free-standing ladder. He was steady as a rock and that kind of balance amazes me. The aerialists were awesome too, and I also loved the tiny powerhouse woman who dangled high in the air from a rope, held by one slender ankle, and swinging a good-sized man around by her luxuriant pony tail. They were a team, but she was the real muscle in almost every spectacular stunt they performed.

Memorable experiences, both! But probably the most fun I’ve had so far was shopping for my kids and grandkids. I put together a huge basket of books, each one chosen with the recipient in mind and because I'd had some personal experience with the book or the author, which in some cases was simply seeing the author interviewed. In the case of Eat Pray Love, I picked out the book for my daughter-in-law because I’d been longing to read it myself. Now, of course, I need to bop back to the store for my own copy.

So, how was your Christmas? What were you hoping for and what did Santa bring?

And finally, in keeping with the title of this blog and just to prove that Santa’s a happening guy and that Christmas was meant to be fun as well as festive, you will find below the link to a cool yuletide song that should coax a smile and maybe a sing along.

A little info about the video clip:

Turn up the volume, sit back and ENJOY this lovely rendition of White Christmas!

Here's the Drifters 1955 White Christmas cartoon once again. It's great and will never lose its appeal....

Watch the video and listen to the golden voices of the stars of days gone by. The lead singer of course is Bill Pinkney (Santa) and the falsetto voice belongs to the late Clyde McPhatter....

The song was originally recorded by the Drifters in 1954, so turn up the volume – these reindeer can sing!

Go to: http://www.thecompassgroup.biz/merryxmas.swf

Wishing you lots of holiday love and laughter!

Suz