Christmas Party

Merry Christmas!

Well, I celebrate Christmas when most everybody else does, but I still have Orthodox friends and family members who celebrate Old Christmas today, January 7th.

Anna and I like to celebrate today, too.

I was travelling on Christmas, so we took the chance to have a Christmas party for our friends, and to celebrate our Eastern European heritage.

We were already celebrating Western Theophany (Three Kings Day) yesterday, and, since everybody's back from their Christmas travels, my church likes to celebrate a traditional Christmas fast dinner on the same weekend. We sang traditional Christmas songs, said prayers, and ate special food. No meat or dairy is allowed. Prunes, mushrooms, and sauerkraut aren't usually foods I like, but at Christmas, they turn delicious! 

Anything's delicious if you put it in perohi, and sauerkraut and lekvar (prunes) are actually two of my favorites. 

(When we're eating dairy, I love the ones with spinach or broccoli and cheese, too.)

Lekvar cookies make a yummy dessert, too! 

Another yummy dessert is babalki, which are little sweet dough balls dipped in honey and poppyseeds. 

This morning, Anna and I put on our best Slovak and Ukrainian national costumes.
I'm glad I still have some of mine from my old dance troupe. They're store bought, but I want to re-make my old Hutsul outfit, too.

We hurried downstairs to find our friends finishing up some last-minute present-wrapping.

Lu brought the paper.

Cady brought cards.

Josefina helped put the finishing touches on presents with pretty bows.

And little Kayla supervised.

Meanwhile, Jess put the finishing touches on the tree...

And Samantha and Addy helped.

Samantha found my trumpet ornament!

Kirsten came dressed in a traditional outfit, too, and she told us about a tradition she brought from Sweden - St. Lucia's day. She celebrates it on the traditional darkest day of the year, and the oldest girl celebrates by dressing up and making a special breakfast to share with her family after she wakes them up. Her Christmas wreath crown would be lit up with bright candles.

Kirsten told us that St. Lucy's day is also celebrated in Slovakia. She challenged us to learn more about it so we can celebrate together next year.

Some girls from Eastern Europe celebrate another holiday in December.

Lindsey brought her Menorah that she used when she celebrated the Jewish holiday of Chanukah in December.

She also brought dreidel toys as a present, showed us how to play the game, and taught us a song in Hebrew. "Sevivon" was fun to sing!

Do you know any songs in another language?

Rachel had fun picking her favorite color dreidel.

Kathleen and Rachel had a lot of fun playing Dreidel together.

We took a break from games to open some presents.

My friends loved the book I found for them.

Dell got some Hopscotch Hill outfits to share with their original owners.

Hopscotch tops fit her well, though the pants are a little long. 

Hand-me downs are great, when your new nice, warm, coat looks this good!

Mummers Parade!

I finally made it back to Philly, just in time for New Year's.

A lot of people watch the Rose Parade on New Year's Day. 

I know people who've been in that, and say it was fun, but here in Philadelphia, we have our own parade. Everyone may stay up until after midnight to say "Happy New Year" on New Year's Eve, but a whole lot of people get up pretty early the next morning to dress up and put on the Mummers' parade. And let me tell you, it's a lot colder here than in Pasadena!

I've lived in Southern California, and the holidays there are great, but nobody does New Year's Day better than Philly.

We're the reason the reason the feather and sequins industries stay in business.

First come the Comics, then the Wenches.

Their costumes are meant to be very silly, and they're joined by the most awesome brass bands, who play while these folks just go crazy having a good time running around in costume and wishing everybody a Happy New Year.

Can you tell that some of the members of Froggy Carr are very proud of their Irish heritage?

I found this video, with the brass band playing after a very long parade, and they're still crazy good:

Later are my favorites, the string bands. 

Their performances are almost like marching band field shows, but everyone's wearing lots of glitter and sequins and feathers!  The costumes are also very heavy! I play the trumpet, so I can't join a string band - they only take string and woodwind players - but I love to watch!

This year, my favorite string band, Fralinger, won first place! 

Their ghosts and goblins were pretty spooky!

Here's a video from the parade's youtube:

Here's the website with videos from all the string bands.

http://phl17.com/2013/01/01/video-string-bands-2013-mummers-parade/

For a close-up of mummers' fancy costumes, here's a Mummer I got to meet down the shore over the summer: 

Not long ago, the parade got so long that they moved one whole section of it indoors.

After the main parade ended, I had to walk to the indoor site. 

On the way, I stopped at a famous department store, where I was surprised by this season's very last showing of the Wanamaker's Light Show! It was supposed to end the day before, and I thought I'd missed seeing it this year, so this was a special treat.

First, there was a concert.

The tree changes color, and we got to hear an organ player play beautiful Christmas music.

Then, music plays and a story is told. Different lights light up to tell parts of the story.

The pictures move, and it's so cool to see them all lit up!

This light show has been a Philly tradition for a really long time, and I love going to see the light show every year.

Here's a video youtube user Murraylight posted a few years ago:

Now - back to the parade.

The last group - the Fancy Brigades - are just that - FANCY - and their elaborate sets make it feel like you're watching a play.

I usually watch this part of the parade on tv, but I was so lucky, I got free tickets to see it this year.

My favorite themes were the Space theme and the Jungle Theme (based on Jumanji!)

Check out that crazy, plant-filled jungle set! Mummers spend all YEAR working on their themes, costumes, and sets.

I also really liked the Native American tribute one group, the Avenuers, did. 

The Mummers like to parody anyone and everyone  - Fralinger has been crazy Scotsmen and barbaric Ukrainians in the past two years. I'm part Scottish and part Ruthenian, and loved both shows, but sometimes, especially in the old days, themes about groups of people are done wrong and are just plain mean. I'm part Choctaw, too, and some Native themes at the parade and on tv turn into a game of "spot the Native Stereotype," when I get to laugh at people who use Plains tipis and Pacific Northwest totem poles and the Florida Seminole Chop to represent the same group of imaginary "Indians," instead of remembering that they're lots of smaller Nations of real people. (I'm talkin' ta you, Quaker City!)

This year, I was thrilled to see a Fancy Brigade who did a Powow theme, where they mentioned, separated, and seem to have researched each Nation they were representing. Everything got the Mummer feather-and-sparkle treatment, but it was awesome.

I love, Love, LOVED the Fancy Shawl Dresses one group of girls wore. 

I know people who say "we're a culture, not a costume," and there are still people in the parade today who really need to think about if their costume or performance is nice to others or is mean, but this group did it well.

Here's the group dance at the end - the colors swirling are so beautiful, and really reminded me of the color and energy of group dances at some powwows I've been to!

Here's a link to all the videos from the parade - you can find the Fancy Brigade Videos at the bottom of the page. You really need to check out the R U Game and the Alien Rising shows!

Have a Happy and Healthy 2013!

Saturday Snow Fun

It snowed again on Saturday - all morning - so we cancelled our plans, stayed at the house, and had fun playing in the snow all afternoon.

(It snows at least once a winter here - it's crazy to imagine I have cousins far away who haven't seen snow yet!)

Looking out the front lawn towards the woods looks like something out of Narnia!

I made snow angels.

And went sledding.

 And made a snowman. Can you tell what cartoon character inspired this snowman?

Here I am with the crazy snowman!

What's the craziest now sculpture you've ever made?

The family dog joined in on the fun, too.

Cody likes to play ball... and outside, he likes to play snowball!

Here he is leaping into the air to catch a snowball.

(He's on an extra long leash so he can run and play.)

By the end of the day, he'd figured out that he didn't need to jump to catch the snowballs - he just let them fall nearby, then took a big bite of the nearest mound of snow.

(He got tossed soft, looser snowballs, not the hard packed ones from the family snowball war!)

I had a lot of fun making snow angels, sledding, making snowmen, and throwing snowballs. 

Do you have ideas for other fun ways to play in the snow?

Here's Dell!

 Here's Dell!!!

Dell is a Hearts for Hearts Girl, who is from Appalachia, USA.

We like Dell because she is from the Appalachain Mountains down South in Kentucky, and the Applachian Mountains also go through Pennsylvania, where we live. The Appalachian Trail actually goes right through the center of the Central PA town we were visiting. The restaurant in town has a big sign up in spring and summer that says "Welcome Hikers!" in big letters, and you can see people walking right down the street with big hiking packs on their backs.

Dell looks so beautiful by the Christmas tree! Dell's camo hat was a big hit!

The house I was visiting over Christmas was right now is outside of town - 'down by the crick in the holler," as folks would say. I also have relatives who were coal miners, so it was fun to read Dell's story and learn that her dad was a coal miner. Back in the '60s and '70s, a lot of mines and factories were closing in Northeast PA, so people like my grandparents moved away to find work, just like Dell's family in the book. Things can still be tough for families in the mountains in PA today, but it's often a whole lot tougher in coal mining areas in Kentucky, where Dell is from. Both here and there, folks love to help each other out. Dell brought a little book that told a little bit about her. Then, we loved reading Dell's diary online, where she told about all kinds of things folks up here like doing to help out, too - from baking pies and sharing food to using our knitting and crocheting skills to make warm things to share. You can find it here: http://www.hearts4heartsgirls.com/the-h4h-girls/ (along with info from the other Hearts for Hearts Girls.).  Dell reminded me that I'm almost done my own crochet project - a blanket to send to friends in Central PA to give away to people in need. We love that she shares a story of kids in the USA in need and has great ideas for how folks in a community can help their neighbors.

Dell came with her Camo Hat, Earrings with removable flowers, a pink and a green stretchy bracelet, and a flower necklace. Her pretty flowered shirt looked great with her cutoff jean shorts - a great way to recycle worn-out hand-me-down jeans into a perfect pair of shorts! You can see her yellow Mary-Jane style sneakers here.

We took Dell outside, to get some light and to explore our neck of the woods.

Dell's hair came mostly in a side ponytail... with a little bit that wasn't attached. It could all be let down, but we're going to just rubberband the loose bit into the existing ponytail.

Dell also came with a code that allows you to play games online. I tested out some of the games. Lilian's mini game didn't work quite right, so I kept losing the game and it was frustrating. But some of the games were ok. You can play a game to help Dell make deliveries to folks in the mountains. My favorite is a game that's made up of a lot of mini games.  There were quizzes, too - you can learn which style of world dance you're most like or you can see how well you know the meaning of Appalachian sayings.  

I really liked that the doll company donates money to kids in need. They also feature stories of real girls who work to do good in their communities.