Center for Puppetry Arts

This morning we were off and running to another wonderful holiday event.  Today we had tickets to the Center for Puppetry Arts' "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!"  And look who was posing for pictures above!  It was Yukon Cornelius!

This is actually Chef Gillespie, posing for pictures as Yukon Cornelius.  He was there to help promote the center with some Christmas cookies and some amazing hot chocolate.  I mean seriously, the hot chocolate was really, really good!

And speaking of which, there was the show itself.  This production is something really special.

The last time we saw this was in 2011, when Madison was much, much younger.  In fact, she didn't remember much of the show.  But we loved its creativity, and the talent behind it.  There are so many things happening with this production, with sets moving to and fro, props flying by, characters interacting with video graphics, songs and impersonations of Burl Ives.  It was wonderful, and had us all singing along loudly at the end:  "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer... had a very shiny nose!"

After the show, a lot of us had tickets to go upstairs and do a craft together, part of the admission price.  Our assignment:  create our very own King Moonracer!

Madison put sunglasses on hers, while Mommy and Daddy made ours look more like the traditional King Moonracer.  Who - by the way - is a rather mysterious character.  He's a griffin that collects misfit toys, and takes them to an island to live.  What's up with that?  Considering it's only brought up shortly, it appears as if this is pretty ripe for a larger story.  Either that, or tell us more about Fireball the Reindeer.  We're given Fireball's name, so what's so special about him?  Does he shoot fireballs out his nose?

Of course not.  Anyway, the craft was fun to make together.  It was nice sitting there and creating again, the three of us using our creative energies to make something interesting.  These will be around the house just... wait for it... lion around.

After this, we went to the museum there, which was updated since the last time we've visited.  It was spectacular.  There's this massive section completely dedicated to Jim Henson, which shows us glimpses of his creativity at his desk and in his room, and in his notes, and as you can see above, in his creations with Camilla, Dr. Teeth and Fozzie Bear.  Also here below you can see Daddy posing with a few pirates from "Muppet Treasure Island."

Here's the man himself, or at least the frog.  He's saying "hi," or at least "hi-ho!"

There were plenty of Muppets there, including Mrs. Piggy and the original Rowlf the Dog, who is still and always will be Daddy's favorite!  Madison enjoyed seeing all the characters, some she was really familiar with, and others were pretty obscure.  The museum was so big, and with so much information, you could spend hours in there just reading and watching the videos.

There was even a section of wall dedicated to one of our favorite Christmas specials, "Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas."

We'll be sure to watch that one this year!  It's a lock, as is "A Muppet Christmas Carol."  Those two are staples for us this time of year.  You can't go throughout the season without watching both of them.

You can see here that there was another section of the museum as well, one dedicated to the puppets from around the world.  Madison and Mommy are here with some marionettes, which, by the way was a spelling word on the recent spelling bee.  Madison also had some hands-on experience with some other types of puppets too!

There are other creations there as well, including some other favorites of ours, a few characters from "The Corpse Bride."

Victor here looks a bit worried.  It might be because he's stuck behind a glass case.  Emily is looking radiant as always though, still just dying to get married:

Surely this will happen by the remains of the day.  We moved from African puppets to the ones we're more familiar with from Europe and North America, and then spent some time admiring the puppetry used in Asia as well!

These Japanese creations were wonderful.  But the Chinese puppets were amazing too, intricately designed, along with the sets that they were used in.  Pretty amazing stuff.  We spent some time looking at the puppets from Guangzhou, not too far from the place where Madison was born.

In the end, we had a great time, and managed to get home without any trouble.  The way there, of course, there were two accidents and a whole lot of traffic.  Can you name a single time recently where there wasn't a lot of traffic in Atlanta?  Alway bumper to bumper stuff, which is why we gave ourselves plenty of extra time to get there on time.  It turns out we needed it!

Anyway, on the way home, we made a special stop at the Mall of Georgia.

Here's Mommy and Madison at the Disney Store there, which isn't entirely the purpose of our stop.  No, the reason for the visit was a stop to see Santa!

We didn't have much of a line to wait in, and the picture came out very nicely.  We'll be working on making copies and sending these out to everyone with Christmas cards this year.  You have to do it so early in the season in order to have enough time to make cards, and send them off.  Here's Madison and Santa.  Either Madison is getting bigger, or maybe Santa is getting smaller?

This is a nice photo we'll be sending out this year.  Merry Christmas!

We walked along the mall, admiring the lights, and talk about a throng of people!  It's already crowded there, as evidenced by our search for a place to sit at the food court.  We used our monthly Chick-Fil-A cards for some free meals, and sat by the windows looking out at all the Christmas shoppers.  It was a nice capper to a pretty full day.

Coming home, we watched a Christmas movie, "The Santa Clause" tonight, with a whole bunch of popcorn of course.  We were a bit tired, of course.  After Nancy Drew, our devotional and prayers, we went to bed tonight, diving under those covers.  Baby, it's cold outside!