Friday, December 13, 2024

Life Size Candyland

 

12-13-2024

Once upon a time, I was on top of Christmas preparations. I was the stage manager at the Fireside where rehearsals for the Christmas show started as early as the beginning of September. If I wasn’t finished shopping and addressing Christmas cards by Thanksgiving, it wasn’t going to happen. Each year I made it happen. With a month to wrap my gifts, they were a thing of beauty.

Then teaching and small children changed the timeline and threw obstacles in it. Now I’m lucky if I remember who’s on my shopping list and PLEASE don’t ask me to give you any gift ideas. All I will come up with is chocolate. It’s perfect: it always fits and I know where to put it.

This year shopping is still an issue as I haven’t started it yet, and if I don’t buy a tree soon my daughter will not be happy with the Charlie Brown option I’ll be left with. However, I’m taking off the week of Christmas and have festive plans. I’ve asked permission to nab the five-year-old grandson (“You can have him whenever for as long as you want”) to bring him to Miss Maria’s life size Candyland game which shall take over the Lower-Level December 26th and 27th. Pre-School Playdate and Storytime those dates will still meet as the game is officially open 1:00-3:00.

For months I’ve been making large purchases (Remember the new couches, chairs and bookshelves?) and saving the boxes. Miss Maria and her family have been converting them into locations for the game board. Max and I are so there. As the program is intended to be for all ages, I recon we’ll be bringing eighteen-year-old Emma along. Sadly, someone has to help me prevent Max from cheating or crying should he loose. She’s a good sport who loves her nephew. In my favor, it will be afternoon and likely involve taking them out for lunch.

Afterward if the weather permits and a pass is available for checkout, maybe we’ll spend a day looking at animals or checkout the Bluey Dance Party from the Library of Things. You know, unless a patron beats me to them in which case there could be a tent or telescope or real bugs in acrylic available. You know, unless a patron plans ahead and checks them out for their children to use over break. Of course, I would put up the tent outside. We’d use it in the living room and save me from washing all the blankets from the linen closet used for a makeshift tent.

I return to work as a worker on Monday, December 30th. If we haven’t returned Max by then, Emma can bring him back to watch the Family Movie about a robot at 3:00 pm.

Reading Now: What I Ate in One Year and Related Thoughts by Stanley Tucci (On a side note, Tucci wrote this about the year he filmed Conclave in Italy - see last week's article.)

Listening to Now: Catch-22 by Joseph Helller (Much better than I remember from the time I tried to read it. Listening made the difference.)

 

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