Advent: The Nutcracker again

The Nutcracker theme has been a Christmas tradition in our household for quite a few years now.  This year is no exception.

We read the unabridged version for bedtime story,

followed by getting more out of the story by reading the DK Eyewitness version which gives other interesting background information to the story.  Then Tiger completed the Nutcracker Activity Book that he had started on when he was four years old.  The activity book contains various activities such as mazes, crossword puzzles, colouring-by-numbers, anagrams, etc.

We listened to two different CDs of The Nutcracker music -- one with narration, the other was purely instrumental -- as we went about our days.

Last year we were able to attend a live performance of the ballet at the Royal Opera House.  This year, we have to be contented with watching the performance at home.

After watching the ballet on the screen, Tiger remembered seeing much of the stage changes at the live performance last year, and he was inspired to put on his own theatre show of the story at home, complete with prop changes:

Although we did not get to watch the ballet live this year, we did however get to attend an orchestral concert of the same piece of music in which a prominent illustrator completed several pieces of illustrations live on stage, in time with each section of the music.

Before the concert, Tiger attended a craft workshop where he made a paper nutcracker and a mouse king's crown.

This post is linked up to:
1) Homeschool Mother's Journal: December 21, 2012
2) Collage Friday - Christmas Preparations
3) TGIF Linky Party #58
4) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One When the World Didn't End
5) Look What We Did: December Link-Up 
6) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Winter
7) Homeschool Hobbies and Handicrafts - Dec 21

The Nutcracker

Tiger has been very familiar with The Nutcracker since he was a toddler.  I bought a child-sized nutcracker that was as tall as a one-year old when Tiger was that age; we listened to narration of the story on CD; read several versions of the story each December; and watched the ballet on DVD.

This year, we have been very lucky to get hold of tickets to go to the Royal Opera House to watch the actual ballet performance.  It was a wonderful way to mark the start of our Christmas season at home.

The performance was magical, as we had expected.  It was wonderful to have seen it in person, after many years of watching the ballet on DVD.  Tiger said he enjoyed it so much that we should return to watch it every year. If we can get hold of the tickets again next year, we will surely watch it again.  Otherwise, the recording of the performance is really almost as good as watching it live: