This year, in keeping with Metro Vancouver’s campaign to ‘create memories, not garbage’, Â I got Mom ballet tickets for Christmas. Â We talked it over earlier in the month when she read reviews in the paper and said she’d like to go. Â Ballet BC was hosting the Alberta Ballet’s Nutcracker with >150 cast members and $1.5 million in sets and costumes, so it seemed like a big deal. Â Â On Christmas day she got to open a box with some ticket inside (even if it wasn’t a surprise).
We stayed over at Mom and Dad’s the night before and then mom got a ride in with us in our SWEET rental Fiat 500 (I got the back seat, meh). Â We ate kim chi pancakes at the apartment for lunch and then Graham dropped us at the QE Theatre. Â It was a great show; my favourite was the Arabian dance but the Sugar Plum Fairy was also really great. Â Please enjoy all these web-pirated photos of the performance.
It was a matinee so we weren’t starving after, but Mom was taking the WestCoast Express back home to Mission so it seemed wise to have a snack. Â Afterwards we had a nice soup and sandwich at the Georgia Hotel, then walked down to the train station.
Here is the music and similar nutcracker performance in St. Petersburg, where the original was staged.