Well, there's that, too...

Twelfth Night is past, and all of the Christmas paraphernalia has finally been put away for another year. I spent a significant chunk of this week de-frocking the Christmas tree, and carefully re-packaging all of the delicate ornaments that I have collected over the course of our family's history... All that remains today is to finish up the actual "cleaning"-- sweeping up all of the glittery dust, removing the pine-sap marks from the ceiling in the living room (??!), and vacuuming the endless, ENDLESS trails of tree needles from the carpets, the floors, and all those remote little hard-to-reach corners of the house that would seem to be the most ridiculously unlikely places for Christmas Crapola to have collected.

In order to find the proper inspiration I needed to stir my weary stumps and break out the ancient, over-used monstrosity we call a vacuum cleaner (along with all its frightening attachment accessories), I turned to my music collection. When it comes to heavy-duty housework, I usually choose something loud and raucous-- generally of the Aerosmith or ACDC variety-- to get myself moving. But not today, however. Today, I needed something light and airy, to match the mood created by the enormous, lacy snowflakes that have been descending outside my window all morning...

Not the "Snowflakes" from "The Nutcracker", however. Too typical. Too overplayed during the holidays.

No.

Instead, I chose the Scherzo from Felix Mendelssohn's exquisite ballet score for "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

The first few delicate notes rang out, but before I was able to reach the broom closet, Wee Three skidded, top-speed, into the kitchen, froze for a moment in the middle of the floor as she listened... and then rose up onto her tippy-tippy toes.

I watched, entranced, as my littlest girlie moved to the music, clearly enraptured by what she was hearing. Faster and faster she whirled and twirled to the beautiful melody, occasionally leaping into the air as she spun, her whole face lit up with the joy of it all.

I was suffused with delight as I watched, and thought of how wonderful it would be if one of my children could realize the dream I once had, to excel in the art of classical dance. Of what a gift it would be, to be able to interpret the beauty of music in movement, and bring stories to life on the stage.

"Oh, my sweetie!" I exclaimed as the piece ended, and my wee girl finally paused, laughing and gasping for breath.

"That was BEAUTIFUL! Isn't it fantastic, that feeling you get when you just can't help dancing to the music??! Did you HEAR the little fairies flitting about in the forest? And the donkey braying, hee-HAWWW, hee-HAWW... That music tells the story of a play by Shakespeare-- a beautiful, funny story... I could just see you acting it out a little bit! Were you pretending to be like Titania, the Queen of the Fairies?"

Wee Three stopped laughing, and gave me an enormous hug-around-the-knees.

"NOPE!" she called, as she skipped out of the room, "I just like spinning awound and making mysewf really, really DIZZY!"

Well.

There's that, too, I guess...