Two weeks of Christmas

I hardly know where to begin because so much has happened in the past two weeks.....

Monday, the 19th, we had the Southerlands and Beckie over for an evening of Christmas music.  Here are the three cellos playing carols.  Lucy was on her violin but outside the photo.

We also practiced "In The Stable", a lovely Christmas song with a children's choir.  Our plan was to sing it in Indiana for Alex.  

The rest of the week was rather quiet without Kirsti, Ryan, Alice , and Ivan to fill our days with fun.  Aside from our regular weekly routine, we delivered goodies to friends and neighbors.  We wrapped gifts. Below are photos from our Wednesday morning walk down Leona Ave.  Can you tell that they are imitating the board game Candy Land?  It is pretty extremely decorated, for sure!

We were hit with a winter storm on Thursday that also brought extreme cold so we hunkered down in the house all day.  Beckie and I did venture out to Costco Friday morning to buy rotisserie chickens for our Bethlehem dinner Sunday evening.  We also were anxious for news from Sarah who left Ogden Friday morning for her two day drive to Missouri.  Apparently, Friday through Wyoming was pretty harrowing.  Saturday, on the other hand, was longer but more relaxed.  Here is a cute photo of her dogs on the trip.

Saturday morning, I was feeling pretty lonely for family so I called up Emily and asked if Steve and I could hang out with them for an hour or so.  It was good to go over and visit.  We had Sam Carpintero over in the afternoon to watch "Muppet Christmas Carol" and to have dinner.  Elise arrived in time to eat and Sarah finally arrived around 8:30.  We saved her some sugar cookies to decorate so that is what she did while we watched "Scrooge".    

Christmas morning was quiet and relaxed since church didn't start until noon.  We had a nice breakfast and opened gifts.  

Church services went well.  I played "O Come O Come Emmanuel" on cello, the Primary children sang "The Friendly Beasts" and the teachers helped since we have such a small group of kids, and the choir had two numbers to sing.  I recruited Elise and Sarah to sing in the choir and they willingly agreed.  Bless them!  Steve was supposed to play a baritone/trombone duet of "O Holy Night" with me accompanying but Greg, the trombonist, came down with stomach flu Christmas Eve so the number was axed.  Here we are in the meetinghouse foyer after the services

When we got home from church around 1:30, it became like the scene out of Home Alone with the family running around trying to get out the door.  We were Greenwood bound and anxious to get there.  Emily and Joe rented a Yukon (who I immediately named Cornelius) and they had room for their family plus Elise.  The rest of us - Steve, me, Beckie, and Sarah - plus our luggage plus food for the Bethlehem dinner at the hotel (since no restaurant would be open Christmas night) and food for the family gathering the next day - crammed into our little Kia.  And away we went.  What about the dogs, you ask?  Well, in an extremely sane moment we had a couple of months ago, we decided that bringing four dogs with us would be just crazy so we hired a mother and  her teenage son from our church to come stay at our house with the dogs for the two days we were gone.  Best decision we ever made!  Anyway, back to Indiana - we all arrived at the Home 2 Suites safely.  The Bethlehem dinner was a little later than hoped and we had tons of leftover food.  

Monday, December 26th, we went over to Julina and Alex's for the day.  Steven and Tamara, who had spent Christmas with their good friends in Ohio, arrived around 11:30.  We had gift opening, a tour of Alex's train layout in the basement, a delicious dinner, the reenacted the Nativity story, and we ended with a family sing-along and play along.  Elise brought her viola, I brought my violin, and Julina had a cello which Noah played.  Emily and Sarah divided the piano part.  We sang "In The Stable".  We sang other carols.  And it was a beautiful time.  Here is what Alex said about it:  "It is difficult to convey the Joy I feel and felt during the sing along, it was one of the great moments in my life. I hope that the children that were there will one day experience the same".  This is also what he said:  "It is not hyperbole to say that we may not meet again in this mortal realm. So I want to convey to all of you how glad I am to be sealed to my family, and look forward to the time of the resurrection when we can all meet again and make beautiful music for our Savior. Please if there is anything in your life that would prevent you from being with us at that blessed event, get it taken care of with the proper priesthood authority"    What a beautiful and poignant statement!  It made all the craziness it took to make everything happen worth it.  

Photos from the day:

For the Nativity reenactment, Lucy was Mary, Joe was Joseph.  Steven, Elise, and Quinn were the 3 wise men, Sarah was a shepherd, Lucy was a sheep, Steve was a squirrel (!?!?), and I was the angel.  

After we returned to the hotel Monday night, some of the Southerlands went swimming in the indoor pool while others of us played games in the lobby that harkened back to many, many game nights around the family table through the years.

We all left for home Tuesday morning and arrived in Saint Louis a little after lunch time.  Before saying goodbye to Elise and Beckie, we had one last round of gift opening....gifts that we just couldn't fit in the Kia to Indiana...

Below are a couple of the gifts we received - a seed wreath from Sarah and an adorable hedgehog figurine that I have placed under my fiddle leaf fig plant...

We had not had a chance to visit  historic Saint Charles before Christmas so Steve, Sarah, Sam Carpintero and I went there Wednesday afternoon and had a lovely time.  All the holiday decor was still up and everything Christmas-related was on sale so I snagged two t-shirts for next year.  Plus a cute little squirrel that was meant to be an ornament but he is going to sit on my music shelf all year round.

On Thursday, Sarah left to spend a few days in Columbia to hang with Steven and Tamara and to see friends and visit favorite haunts.  Steve and I watched Lily and Bones here.  The bitter cold snap is over and we have had temperatures in the 60's!!!  SO CRAZY!!!  We have spent the end of the week putting away much of the Christmas decor.  We have also hauled several loads of free mulch from the Carondelet Park mulch site to bolster our backyard turn-around area.  We still have to take down our two last Christmas trees plus put away all the nativities and the outside decorations but Sarah will help us with that now that she has returned.  She will be with us all next week so look for many more photos of the adventures we have planned....

 

It's The Most Musical Time of the Year - Part 2

Boy, this past week was ANOTHER one full of musical events to attend or to participate in!  

Sunday, December 11th was Emily's choir concert.  The venue was lovely, as you can see.  The church is just down the road from Emily's house so it was a good thirty minute drive to get there.   Elise attended with Steve and me and then headed back to Columbia.  Emily is just below the masked singer.

Wednesday at noon I met Emily at her place and we attended a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers meeting and luncheon where she was asked to sing "Ave Maria" with me accompanying.  Wednesday evening I drove BACK to Ballwin to attend Noah's orchestra concert at his high school.  And THAT time it was in the in pouring rain.  Ugh!  Not fun.  But, it was fun to see Noah sitting first chair in the cello section.  

Thursday morning Greg Farley came over with his trombone and he and Steve worked on their brass duet of "O Holy Night" for Christmas day church service.  I am accompanying them.

Friday night was Noah's Rising Generation Youth Choir concert in Kirkwood - not quite as far away as Ballwin.  It was quite good - a combination of singing and a little play that connected the pieces.  No photos, sadly.

Saturday night was a Saint Louis South Stake choir Christmas concert that I sang in.  I also played cello (the Piano Guys arrangement of  "O Come O Come Emmanuel") and directed the Hallelujah Chorus at the end as the conductor needed to play violin!  No photos from this concert, either.  

Saturday day, after Steve and I worked in the temple, we went over to Southerlands and I worked on the lovely Christmas song called "In The Stable" with the kids and Emily and Joe as we hope to sing it with the family in Indianapolis.

Yesterday (Sunday the 18th) I played "O Little Town of Bethlehem" in a string quartet in church and had our final choir practice afterwards in preparation for Christmas day service.  

WHEW!  That is a lot of music going on!

And, that was in addition to all the other things that went on last week.  I started last Sunday morning with diarrhea cramps and stayed close to a toilet most of the day.  By evening, I felt good enough to go to Emily's concert.  

Monday, we joined Emily and Beckie for lunch at a cute Mediterranean restaurant in the Central West End before our 2:00 tour of the Saint Louis Basilica.  It is quite the place.  There are more mosaic tiles inside than any other place in the world outside of Russia.  It is pretty breathtaking....

This ceiling is all mosaic!  

The tiny red objects hanging from the mosaic ceiling below are Cardinal ceremonial hats.  They hang until the cord holding them up breaks.  When that happens, it is believed that the Cardinal to whom it belonged to gets to exit Purgatory.  Strange Catholic belief, that is.  I thought only wicked people ended up in Purgatory and that one had to be pretty righteous to be a Cardinal....

Here we are in front of the Basilica.

Tuesday we were at the temple in the morning.  In the afternoon I worked on finishing up all our Christmas goodies and Beckie came over that evening and we watched a movie while she helped me make cream cheese mints.  The movie was an Italian sub-titled one called "Truffle Hunters" and was all about the white truffle harvest in northwest Italy.  Fascinating!  

Wednesday morning (early) we drove Sally and Linus down to Open Door Animal Sanctuary for their annual shots and for the vet to check them out.  Linus had been awaking in pain for a few mornings a few days earlier and we were worried.  She attributed it to old age and he has been doing much better so who knows why for about five days in a row he would wake up and just howl/cry with a sound we had never heard him make before.  Here is Steve below as we awaited the vet to arrive.  That cat on the table was very friendly and purry and was kind enough to leave our shirts furry.

This is Linus before he got groomed on Friday.  He was getting pretty hairy.  

Thursday was lessons most of the day AND another rehearsal at 8:00 that evening with the pianist for the O Come O Come I did on Saturday.

Friday was grocery shopping for us and for Fred, our blind neighbor, and for Charles, a homebound man who lives in our congregation.  Our little Kia barely had room for all the bags!  We also fed the sister missionaries before we headed out to Noah's choir concert.  

It has been just WALL TO WALL all week and we were desperately trying to get things done before Kirsti and Ryan and Alice and Ivan were to arrive this week. And, then I got a text Sunday morning that Kirsti tested positive for Covid and Ivan was probably also positive.  The much anticipated Christmas visit was cancelled - just like that.  Because, how miserable would it be to be sick and not in your own home and bed???  And the possibility of infecting the whole family???  Happily, they were able to get vouchers for their tickets so they WILL be coming to visit sometime in the next year.  Suddenly, all the running around trying to get things ready was no longer needed.  This week that I had cleared to spend time with grandkids just became wide open.  It took me all day yesterday to get my brain around all the ramifications of the Merrills not coming.  And, even today I will look at something that will remind me "Oh, yeah, I was going to share 'or do that with Alice and Ivan or Kirsti.".   We were going to be all together as a family for the first time since 2019.  Sniff!

Christmas movie watching has been pretty sparse, what with all the concerts.  But, we have watched "Elf" and "Polar Express" and "Mr. Kruger's Christmas".  

It's the most musical time of the year

 Since I blogged on Wednesday, there is not much to report.  However, Saturday, the Civic Orchestra had not one but TWO performances.  Because this is not a "normal" concert season due to it being an audition year for a new conductor, a typical December "holiday" concert was not planned.  It was felt that the second conducting candidate needed a more challenging repertoire than just Leroy Anderson's Sleighride to give him more equal footing with the other three candidates.  So, a rigorous concert of Dvorak and Price was planned for December 3rd.  Then, we were approached by the Inner Ear Youth orchestra director whose East Saint Louis group had played with us last year AND by the city of Overland who has been keen to have us play a holiday concert in their state of the art high school performing arts center since before the pandemic!  Wanting to continue relationships with both, we polled the orchestra members to see if a majority were available on December 10th and happily, most were.  Thus, two concerts.  The first was at 4:00 at the Macy's court of the Galleria Mall.  Not a perfect venue but we were certainly seen and heard by a large audience of passing-by shoppers.  The Inner Ear Youth Orchestra played first.  We were supposed to play a simplified version of the Hallelujah Chorus together but, last minute, some of her more advanced musicians couldn't come so it just ended up being the Civic Orchestra alone playing.  Most of the youth orchestra play by rote, not able to read notes.  Below are some photos of the event.  Emily and Joe and the kids came to listen

Our second concert was at 7:00 at Ritenour High School in Overland.  It truly is  a beautiful venue and hopefully, we can have many more performances there in the coming years.  But, two concerts left my back needing some ibuprofen.  And now the orchestra has a much-needed two week break.

Elise is in town this weekend.  She drove over after she got off work yesterday and met Steve at Saint Charles around 5:30 for her yearly experience.  Our family has gotten so large and scattered and busy that finding one day for us all to meet and go to Saint Charles has just become more and more difficult so this year, we are all going when we can fit it into our schedules and I think we will eventually share our treasure purchases with each other when we get together the day after Christmas.  In the future, it might be through a Zoom meeting?  She is going to attend Emily's choir concert with Steve and me this evening and then drive back to Columbia.

My last mention is Sally.  She has started to leave life savors on our bed.  I keep a small handful of individually wrapped life savors in a candy dish on the round table next to our two small couches in the living room and Sally must be getting them from there.  She doesn't try to eat them.  Maybe she is giving them to us as a gift?  And, since she is the only one who can jump up on our bed, we know it can't be Linus.  What a strange little dog...

Transitioning to Christmas

 It always happens this time of year - too much to do and not enough time to do it all.  Weirdly, it isn't gifts or goodies that have consumed my time (yet) but music.  Although that shouldn't be too big of a surprise... Sunday was put out of whack because I played prelude music in a string quartet in another ward during the time I would usually be doing my blog.  And, there was just not enough time the rest of the day to do much of anything at the computer.  So, on this mid-week Wednesday night, I will fill you all in on my last of November and first of December....

I had my birthday dinner of ribeye steak on the Sunday after Thanksgiving when my stomach was finally feeling like normal food.  I didn't have my traditional birthday pumpkin cheesecake until this past Sunday (December 4th) because there were too many other delicious leftover desserts the weekend after Thanksgiving.  

Monday I took our Element and drove to Columbia for the day.  I spent late morning/early afternoon helping my friend Elizabeth Crippen go through boxes that were piled up in her bedroom.  She really did all the work, I just sat and acted as a cattle prod "what is in this box?"  "that should go to Goodwill". etc.  I then drove over to Elise's new apartment and we used the Element to get a bookcase and chairs and a small file cabinet from her storage unit.  We also hauled boxes to recycling.  I knew where to go because I had already made a deposit of recycling for Elizabeth.  Once we got back to the apartment, I helped Elise a little with unpacking but it was getting late and I needed to catch a nap before driving home.  As I lay on her bed, Elise's cat Tonks hopped up and got her nose right up to mine inspecting the person on the bed before settling down about two feet away from me.  Then, Elise's other cat, Peanut, who I had never seen before because she is so skittish, hopped on the bed and did the same thing.  She also settled down right next to me, close enough that I could scratch her ears.  I believe she thought I was Elise because when I got up, she looked at me in surprise and immediately scooted away under the bed.  While I was gone all day, dear Steve hauled all the Christmas decoration tubs up from the basement!

Tuesday was the first day since before Thanksgiving that I had enough time (and health) to work on orchestra business including email.  I spent the morning doing that.  Steve and I shopped at Savers that afternoon.  We both needed jeans and I wanted to get some toddler tops for the dogs (Sally wears a 2T and Lines a 4T).  Here they are modeling some that I found.  The stripes make them look like little jailbirds.  When we put them in the kennel, all they need are tin cups to bang against the bars to complete the picture.

I brought home a set of bedroom chest of drawers from Elise's place and we replaced the dresser we had down in the guest room with them.  They are in better shape that what we had and MUCH lighter.  It was quite the effort to haul the old one up the stairs and into the Element to drop off at the thrift store.  

We went to the Christmas tree lot at Ted Drewes Thursday morning and bought a cute little Frasier fur.

  We set it up and decorated it that evening after all my cello lessons were over.  I decorated the rest of the house throughout the day on Friday and finished just in time for the grandkids to arrive for the night.  Emily and Joe were celebrating their anniversary a month late with dinner at Little Fox, a concert of the bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers, and a night at the Hilton at Union Station.  After we fed them breakfast for dinner (including donuts), 

the poor kids then had to attend my orchestra dress rehearsal (well, Noah stayed home to do homework) with Steve.  They were so good and the rehearsal was so long and I felt badly for all four of them (Steve, Lucy, Quinn, and Larkin).  We bedded them all down in our guest room with the little artificial Christmas tree acting as a nightlight.  

Saturday was FULL.  It started with Steve driving Noah 35 minutes away to Saint Charles where the youth choir that he sings in was spending the day - marching in the noon parade down quaint historic Main Street, giving a concert at 1:30 in front of the gazebo in the little park, singing carols in groups through the shops the rest of the afternoon, and finally ending with a Las Posadas parade at 6:00.  What a day!  Emily and Joe met up with Steve around 11:30.  I arrived with Lucy, Quinn, and Larkin about twenty minutes later and we all watched the parade.  Poor Quinn woke up not feeling well so he was pretty miserable and he ended up running a fever most of the weekend and stayed home from school Monday.  Steve and I had hoped to catch the gazebo concert but we had to grab some lunch (at Culvers which was delicious) and that took so much time we couldn't get back in time.  But, happily, the choir is singing again next Friday and we can enjoy it sitting down and out of the frigid cold that we had on Saturday.  (Noah is in the red scarf and wearing a hat he borrowed from Grandpa Steve.  I loaned him long underwear and gloves.  Temperatures didn't climb out of the 30's all day)

We got home mid-afternoon, I put together a pumpkin cheesecake, took a nap, and then headed out for my orchestra concert at the Kirkwood First Presbyterian Church.  As you can see, I am sitting first chair which is NOT my choice.  We couldn't get anyone to audition for principal cello this year and no one else in the section will sit up in front so, there I am.  I honestly would prefer to sit in back, too, where there is not so much pressure.  And, there were passages that, no matter how much I practiced, I just couldn't play them up to tempo.  Air cello happened during those measures.  

A parting shot of Sally and Steve.