Holiday Eye Candy

I don't have any new projects to show right now because I've been knitting away at my "Crescendo Shawl", trying to finish it. I measured last night and I have 12-18 inches to go, depending on if I make it the full 66". I really wanted to finish it in time for Christmas but I was busy making Christmas gifts and didn't quite make it. Now, my new goal is to finish it by my birthday. That gives me about three weeks.

So, in the meantime, how about a little holiday eye candy. Here's something that most people will never have the opportunity to see. It's a view in the orchestra pit at "Nutcracker". My daughter took this just before the show...


That's her harp in the foreground, right. They are actually below the stage. The conductor stands up high enough to see what's happening on stage while they are playing. If you look closely (or click to enlarge) you can see the side balcony boxes above. When she first did this show (last year), I found it interesting how all this worked. When we arrived for "load in", all large instruments, chairs, music stands, etc. were loaded in at basement level and then they raised the whole pit to the level it needed to be for the performance. After the final performance, they raise the pit to stage level and rolled everything off. I'm not sure why, but when they take everything back out they call that "strike". We've been learning so much about the world of music. It so interesting and there is sooooo much to learn.

Another piece of eye candy....


One of the orchestra members lives nearby and every year he and his family spend a couple of months decking their house out for the holidays. We had a chance to see it this year. Wow! We now understand why it takes so long. The picture above is a glimpse of a village they set up in their garage. It spans the whole front of their three car garage. Amazing! This shot above is the left side. In the center shot, below, notice the Disney Electric Light Parade (I think you can click the pictures to make them bigger and see the details)...


And, here's a picture looking toward the right side...


They also had a village with a train on their porch, and more trains, trees, and holiday surprises inside. It was the most popular decorated house in the neighborhood...probably the whole town...as you can see in the picture below with all the people standing in the driveway. Notice the second story windows with the animated Disney scenes.


They also had a warm fire in the driveway and soup and eggnog inside. The whole neighborhood was lined with luminarias down the sidewalks and the sides of every driveway. It was fun for us to see...I can only imagine how magical it would be for little kids.