The magic of the season arrived with a flourish this week!
We had the first snow of the winter at our house on Beethoven’s birthday.
I was up late making a Tomten puppet, and it was easy to imagine a tomten making little footprints in the silent snow outside our frosty window.
The next day, the children loved wearing their Tomten masks, and they delighted everyone who was lucky enough to see the little gnomes tiptoeing through the library.
On Saturday, Linda and I had our final concert (of three!) this week, and we had an amazing crowd of over 60 people crammed into the children’s library.
I was ecstatic to see so many parents and kids from the community in attendance. Linda and I played our best, and it was thrilling to feel the current of warmth flowing from the audience.
I told my own holiday version of “The Button.” It includes Mouse Children who come Yule caroling in the winter, Maying in the spring, and playing Button Button, Who Has the Button? in the fall.
When we were making the Mouse masks, I had asked parents if they thought their children might like to have a part in our holiday concert. But of course it’s hard to know how children will feel about things when faced with an audience, so I was prepared to tell my story without the participation of Mouse Children.
Imagine, then, my joy when a number of children arrived carrying their Mouse masks!
And there were many eager volunteers for the three extra masks I had with me!
Finally, thanks to my friend Bob Kanegis, I had the perfect opening for my story of Simple Gifts—the Global Heart Warming ritual that he invented.
But it would be best for you to hear more about that from the master storyteller himself:
