The Middle Classes at Play

We went to a performance of “The Snowman” in the Concert Hall with a live orchestra. I saw it advertised in September and thought it might be nice for us to go. A family Christmas outing. I forked out €70 (non-refundable) for this piece of Christmas cheer. When I announced the proposed treat at the start of December, the children all groaned. “We hate the Snowman, we’ve seen it loads of times before.”

The children’s best friends decided to hold their birthday party on the same afternoon as the Snowman. After much agonising we decided to stick with the Snowman even though a) our children would have loved the party and b) all three of them would have been gone from 2.30 -5.00 and we could have read the papers. They still don’t know that they missed the party. I really hope that they never find out.

On the day of the treat, we dragged them to the Concert Hall. The foyer was abuzz with excited children and their parents. Sample conversation: “Have you put little unpronounceable (aged 3) down for secondary school yet?” “No, actually we haven’t, but imagine the local primary school is no longer taking names for its waiting list”.

Despite their best intentions, the children did actually quite enjoy the show. In addition to the Snowman it had a range of other attractions. It featured Santa and, in a complicated plot development, the Grinch. The latter was stealing clothes from a washing line. When Santa asked where the Grinch was all the children in the audience roared out “behind the line” except for Daniel who shouted in his best demotic Dublinese “behind the li-on”. He is great at picking up accents. We have a CD of Irish songs and when Daniel sings along, he sounds just like a little boy from the Connemara Gaeltacht. I am hoping that this will be useful to him in later life. Have I told you this before? I digress. There were some songs from Glee all of which the Princess seemed to know (mental note – how?). There was much talk of the X-factor. There were carols. When asked afterwards whether they enjoyed it, the Princess and Daniel said that they did but Michael (despite ample evidence to the contrary during the show) said that he did not.

Emboldened by the relative success of the show after a poor start, we decided to go to Milano’s. The children were ravenous – having refused to eat lunch – and the sight in the foyer of a Christmas treat box sent the Princess wild. She really wanted that box. But we were going for pizza and her mean, horrible parents would not let her have it. Cue unfortunate meltdown in the foyer as a number of people we knew tripped out of the stalls. Sigh. The trip for pizza passed off peacefully though. We should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose.

Tomorrow: the pantomime.