Another year is almost behind us all! I remember when I was a little kid it seemed like it took FOREVER to get through December, but I am certain the rest of this year will fly by for me. Since Thanksgiving fell early this year, it seems to me that this past week was a sort of “bonus week” in the holiday rush, and now we are getting down to brasstacks.

I was supposed to have three students today followed by a rehearsal, but I’ve had two cancel, so it’ll be one student, practice time, then a rehearsal. I find some of my college students get a bit overwhelmed at the end of the semester and can’t always make their lessons. I try to be strict, as it’s for credit, but also understanding, because I know how it is to be totally overwhelmed. It’s different if they are a music major or even a music minor—I feel like their lessons are more integral to their degree in those cases. I also try to be accommodating, and end up teaching some make up lessons during reading and finals week.

I do plan to do some Christmas decorating this weekend. Last year I bought a few Nutcracker figurines in an after-Christmas sale, and I put them up on the mantel this week (I had stored them in a different place than my regular decorations). One of my students last night told me she thought they were creepy and felt like they were staring at her! I thought this one was particularly cute.

I thought I’d get a post up earlier, but I just haven’t had the time. I rarely sit down with my computer these days. I do most of my emailing even at my phone, or I do a quick email if I want to use a keyboard. But here we are!

Thanksgiving went by quickly. I had one actual day off, and my parents came up for a quick visit and to see Aladdin. I had double performances on all the other days around Thanksgiving, and this was the third week of the show, so I’d been pretty busy! I love playing these shows, but it’s 8 shows a week on top of my regular 45 ish student teaching schedule…life gets very busy. This was my last one this season, so the spring will be much less busy, though I always have extra gigs and such.

Anyway! It ended up being a gorgeous day on Thanksgiving, so first my Mom and I made pies (apple crisp, pecan pie, pumpkin pie), then we went to Laumeier Sculpture Park to walk around. Louie’s mom was hosting us for Thanksgiving and we were grateful not to have too much to do.

We found a large eyeball. Any giants missing one?

We went and walked around Washington University as well. We thought of getting four bikes to rent, but didn’t have enough phones with the app on it to rent them (you needed one phone for each bike rental). Dad is the more experienced biker so he did the riding.

It was good to see my parents, even for a short visit, so I’m glad they made it up. If we’d have the snow storm from the week before they might not have come! I didn’t take any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner, but it was delicious. Then I was back to work the next day, and finished the show on Sunday.

It’s nice that college teaching is winding down. The semester is an odd thing: you work really hard for like 15 weeks and then you have a month off, or more in the summer. I have a few students doing various performances but mostly people are simply winding down and focusing on their other classes and projects. Lessons are only 1 credit mostly, so it isn’t a huge commitment unless they are a performance major.

I’m hoping to put up my (fake)Christmas tree this weekend. I thought I’d put it up and see how the cats react, and then if things seem okay add the ornaments a little later? It’s been suggested to put only soft ornaments down low that they can be “naughty” with and think they are getting away with something. I don’t know how much cats think like that, but it’s probably a good idea either way.

Louie and I have a few festive activities planned for December, including a few concerts, a house tour, and we are hoping to finally hit up the Garden Glow at the Botanical Gardens (we’ve never been) this season. I was thinking to myself that I didn’t have many gigs in December, but I added things up and I do have 12 different gigs in December, so that probably is enough!

How was your Thanksgiving? What holiday activities are you planning to do this December?

I’m overly busy, and I’ve had so much going on, not all good. But I’m here, and I’m getting through it, and Thanksgiving will be lovely!

I’ll write more later, but I just wanted to pop in in case you are a loyal reader and wondered what happened to me. Louie and I went on a lovely hike one day at Buford Mountain, that I’ll share with you more later, but then I found out less than two days later that my grandmother passed away and that just threw everything into a whirlwind mess of figuring out how to get to Ohio and how to cancel or reschedule things. Then I came back and now I’m playing three weeks of a show at the Fox Theater here and things are just crazy. Oddly (for a musician especially) December looks way better, and I’m planning some fun holiday activities for us to relax and enjoy ourselves more. It’s been a bit too much, honestly.

But I’m still here. Things are okay!