Everyday Canvas

December 17

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

Prompt: "The Nutcracker sits under the holiday tree. A guardian of childhood stories." Vera Nazarian
Write about the Nutcracker in your Blog entry today.

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The nutcracker is a tool to crack walnuts and other such nutty things, and I guess, it would make a nice gift while sitting under a tree, wrapped up in ribbons and tinsel.

The nutcracker is also a story written by E. T. A. Hoffmann, titled "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King." It was later made into a two-act ballet together with the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Russian choreographers. Although not popular in its first showing, the ballet has become a regular Christmas fare performed all over the world.

The ballet and the music was a dreamlike experience when I saw it for the first time and a few others after that. Recently however, it has become “too much of a good thing.” Still, I like its music and from it the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

For: "Space Blog" 

Prompt: From Solace.Bring "Still and Snow" 
Do you like snow? Tell us about it.

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Snow is. Whether I like it or not, it comes down on us first beautiful and bold, then turning to ugly slush.

I used to love snow when we had house with a two-acre backyard secluded because of tall pine trees on its sides and several oaks in the middle. There was a clearing about 30 yards from the house where I had a rose garden and a small vegetable plot. After the snow would stop and a full moon would come up at night, the entire place looked like a fairyland out of this earth. That scene is etched inside my mind, and anytime I think of snow, I view that scene.

Yet, I didn’t like it when the snow came down harsh with the wind in a slanted or even a horizontal blur. It was like being invaded by some unearthly militia, paratrooping from the sky and covering everything dead or alive.

Where I live now, there is no snow. Do I miss it? Honestly, no. I don’t miss the cold. I don’t miss the circles we rubbed on the windowpanes just to take a peek at the outside. Yet, most of all, I don’t miss the shoveling.

Still, I have to admit. Snow is a pretty thing.