The Nutcracker

I am all about family traditions around the holidays! And with Martin’s family coming over to the US for Christmas this year it gave us a chance to share some Gimbel family traditions (fresh crab and homemade raviolis), incorporate some Breuer family traditions (Annegret’s plated Christmas Eve veal and chicken ragout) and develop some of our own traditions for Oskar (Christmas Eve service at the Norwegian church and New Year’s Eve dinner at Cafe Maddelena’s in Dunsmuir.)

One tradition I was excited to share with Martin's family this year and eventually introduce to Oskar when he is old enough was going to see the SF Ballet’s Nutcracker.  One of my favorite memories growing up was going to see the Nutcracker in San Francisco during the holidays.  It was always a magical evening with the dancing snowflakes, Sugar Plum Fairy and Russian dancers (my favorite)…and It was a family tradition that I have embraced and look forward to passing along.   Or so I thought.  Upon mentioning this tradition to the Breuers over Christmas Eve dinner my parents both looked at me like I was crazy and proceeded to burst my bubble by saying we had never been to the SF nutcracker. 

Say what?!

How is this possible?  I have vivid memories of seeing the Nutcracker every year growing up and knew most of the songs and dances when Martin and I rekindled the “tradition” a few years ago.  If this was untrue, what else from my childhood had I made up?!  My world has been rocked… It took a few days and a few good laughs to get over this confusion and embarrassment…   So even though it turns out this was not a tradition growing up, it is one I would like to continue going forward. 

Side Note:  After a few follow up questions and discussions with the family we agreed that we most likely went to the SF Nutcracker twice growing up and for a few other years I watched dances from the Nutcracker during the annual Holiday Performance of my dance company.   Combine this with my memories of going to San Francisco to see the Macy’s window displays and it is feasible that I merged the two memories. 

A Little Place Called Aspen

“We gotta get out of this town!

Oh yeah, and go where? Where are we gonna go?

I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called Aspen.”

It was with these immortal words from Lloyd Christmas ringing in my ears, that I boarded my flight to Aspen for my first night away from Oskar.

To take a step back for a moment, I had the privilege of spending an incredible weekend in Cabo last year with 7 amazing women for Lyndsey’s bachelorette party.  The trip was so memorable we spent the following 10 months trying to find another weekend and location to do it again.  And after all of the efforts, emails and text messages, all it took was for Erika to send out an invitation to spend the weekend at her newly built home in Aspen the first weekend in December to lock it in.  30 minutes later flights were booked and the weekend was set.  I had done the math and realized that Oskar would be 6 months old and it would be time to have a night away.  As my coworker put it: he will eventually go to college so might as well start now.

I left on the early morning flight on Saturday and was set to come home a little over 24 hours later on Sunday afternoon.  The rest of the crew had arrived Thursday evening so, like always, I was coming in late to the party, but I was coming in hot.  I headed directly from the airport to downtown (with luggage in hand) to meet the ladies for a late lunch and some shopping. 

 

The afternoon rolled into evening which we kicked off with ugly sweaters and a white elephant gift exchange back at the house followed by an elegant dinner served to us by three amazing gentlemen.  No, not Erika’s husband (she kicked him out for the weekend); but rather three guys who work on the family ranch and also happen to be professional chefs.  Yup, it was a plated, four course dinner of salad, soup, roasted chicken with broccoli and blackberry cobbler paired with countless bottles of red wine. Similar to the Cal Poly Girls, this group of ladies shares the love of sitting around a large dining room table and catching up over wine rather than go out (although to be fair, they did have a big lavish dinner out in Aspen the night before… I just missed it). 

We spent the rest of the night catching up, laughing at the terrible presents and sweaters and making a “Mannequin” video.  For those, like me, who required Google’s (and their millennial coworkers) help, a “mannequin” video is the current 15 minute trend of the moment where everyone stands still like a mannequin and someone films it.   

The anticipated moment of the trip for me though was the idea of being able to sleep more than three hours in a row without interruption from a hungry little 6 month old.  I said good night to the girls early (at 1am) and was excited for restful night’s sleep.   Unfortunately for me, my Arcadian rhythms had other plans.  I ended up wide awake at 5am and was able to get only one more hour of sleep before finally getting out of bed at 7. Ugh.

The bright side of the morning: waking up to the smell of maple bacon, French toast and sausage. Yup, the private chefs returned the next morning to cook us breakfast.  And while the rest of the ladies were too hungover to enjoy all of the offerings (did I mention the salmon benedict, yogurt parfait and fresh fruit?) I went to town like a crazy woman going back for seconds and helping to clean the plates of a few others. 

The weekend ended shortly thereafter with promises to plan the next weekend getaway soon and I returned home to my two favorite men in the whole world.