Curtain Up!

They say that Christmas is a time to revisit one's childhood and I think it is never too late to do just that - to try to recapture that magical feeling as you hear someone creeping in to fill your stocking, or when you catch your first sight of the giant tree sparkling with lametta, and glowing with candles, and realise that there are large packages waiting just for you....

Maybe even a dolls house? 

Cestina aged 4

Even 102 is not too late to relive some of the fun of Christmas! My friend Rose remembers sticking paper chains with flour and water, and remembers too that they fell down as soon as the room got warm and the "glue" dried out!  Less falling down for this modern version...

And we haven't just been making paper chains in this run up to Christmas.   Whilst burrowing under Rose's stairs recently I found the Usborne theatre that I had given her a couple of years ago which for some reason or other we had never got around to putting together.   I had completely forgotten its existence.

With last week's blogpost entitled "That's Entertainment", and with a follow-up post due this Saturday, there seemed no better time to construct it than now.

After all, as we know from the very first adult film I was ever taken to see, aged 8 - Annie Get Your Gun -"There's no Business like Show Business!"

(My first crush came then too - on Howard Keel singing "My defences are down").

The Usborne theatre was a delight to put together, as easy as the house..... 

....we made a few years ago, and we are now ready to perform both The Nutcracker Suite and even A Midsummer Night's Dream to anyone willing to come and sit through them....

Back to Bavorov now for Curtain Up in the "big" theatre in the window.

I have discovered that old Advent calendars make useful theatre backdrops and they fit very well in the transformed charity shop puppet theatre.  

When I first thought of this project I planned to use an Edwardian street scene Advent calendar as the backdrop...

...and rapidly gathered together as many props as I could find to add to the illusion.  

But for some reason that I cannot now remember I went off the idea and settled on a German Christmas market instead. 

(My change of heart probably had something to do with the availability of suitably clad dolls for the street scene since sewing costumes is not something that I can do...)

Once again my trusty carolling dolls were called into action - I think they have appeared in every Christmas blog I have written since 2012, including their starring role in the Winter Songfeast post of 2015.

There was some jockeying for position... 

but the whole scene came together very rapidly... 

....and the big reveal happened, thanks to my friend Jana, (since I am now back in the UK) in Bavorov on the last day of November, just in time for the Advent Farmers' Market.

from this....

...to this...

Of course no Christmas Market can be complete without accompanying music, preferably brass, so I hope you can take a break from your preparations to enjoy a new discovery for me, the Michel Rondeau Brass Quartet with a delightful selection of carols...

And finally I leave you with all good wishes for a joyous Christmas and a peaceful New Year from Small Worlds

(accompanied by some more seasonal music...)