17 replies to this topic

[cubanmiamiboy]

It's done...over.  In a few hours 2009 will be history.  By writing this little note I just wanted to acknowledge and thank each and every one of the BT'rs who send me all kinds of support notes during some tough times.  At some moments it was VERY important and comforting to open the BT page and see so many messages popping in.  I even remember this happening while in an ICU.  So THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU  for all your prayers and wonderful thoughts.  You guys are are all in my heart and my mom's too.
So, I wish you all a WONDERFUL, AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL 2010, and that all your dreams  come true!!!
Love:
Cristian.

[Helene]

Happy 2010 to everyone!

Seattle Times published a list of New Year's Eve activities in the area, from the expensive to the reasonable, and I was happy to see the following:

Quote

New Year's Eve

at the Swedish Cultural Center

Pea soup and meatball dinner, dancing, entertainment, champagne and Swedish pancake breakfast, 8 p.m., Swedish Cultural Center, 1920 Dexter Ave. N., Seattle; $45, 21-and-over (206-283-1090 or swedishculturalcenter.org).

I love that they have all bases covered:  dinner and breakfast!

[Pamela Moberg]

Happy New Year to everybody - I know that some people have already celebrated - some others will soon - here, we had ours about three hours ago.
So, where ever you are I would want to wish you a very happy NEW YEAR   Much happiness, good health, of course and a lot  of lively and alert posters and friendly comments and I DO LOVE YOU ALL  
Good heavens, what was that, Helene? Pea soup? OMG, sounds weird. We dined and had lobster (here I am a bit ashamed, but it is only once a year, it was Canadian lobster, sorry about that). And champagne of course - otherwise it would not be New Year. Sweet was home made though, apples from the orchard, no pesticides, I am absolutely adamant there -likewise Christmas tree (I have a plantation and sell ecological ones), people who buy get some bugs for free, but the trees smell wonderful when you put them indoors. This year I charged 10 dollars a tree, customer has to saw his own. Fun is had by everybody

[LiLing]

Happy New Year everybody, and thank you moderators, for a very enjoyable year of Ballet Talk.
LiLing

[bart]

Happy New Year to all.  (I've just returned from looking at the craters and mountains of the Blue Moon through a most impressive telescope brought to the party by a fellow guest.)  

I hope that that each of us -- all the dancers, choreographers, production artists, musicians, managers, teachers, students, and audiences of world ballet -- has a wonderful 2010, full of happiness, affection, growth.  (With lots of great performances, of course!.   )

[Jack Reed]

Warm greetings to my ballet-loving friends from frigid Chicago!  As I begin to write this, the sun has just come up for the first time in the new decade on a city where most buildings are ornamented by a delicate strip of cloud material attached at one end to the chimney, gently writhing in the calm, cold air.  (Some of them are a city block in length.)  It's about -14 C., and at midday the beach my frosted windows overlook may have some people on it who greet the New Year with a dip or an actual swim in the freshwater inland sea here we call Lake Michigan.  (Years ago I was there too, not in a swimsuit but wrapped up against the cold to record the event with a borrowed camcorder, but today I'll just look out the window, thank you.)

(Time was, I also peered at the Moon and bright planets and other heavenly attractions through a small telescope, bart!  May I suggest you look again at the Moon when it's less bright and dazzling, more of a crescent, and the sunlight there is at a more grazing angle?  See how you like that!)

BT means a lot to me too, because I've never had too many kindred spirits, friends who share my interests.  That makes me feel sometimes like I live in the wrong place, even though I think there is a BTer with the charming screen name treefrog who lives here.   I may never see many of you face-to-face, but you are frequently present in my thoughts, and (thanks to Alexandra, who started this!) you make a good place to exercise my desire to try to contribute to something good and most of all to learn about ballet and even sometimes about writing.  (Am I the only one who comes back to look for further comments, re-reads their post, and thinks, "OMG, did I write that?")  And there are a few of you who I have met (including Alexandra!) and that's been another nice surprise.

[rg]

New Year's greetings by way of Vera Fokina photographed with her Grecian flute in an early Fokine ballet (not sure just which one).

Attached Files

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[PeggyR]

A happy, ballet-filled New Year to all!

[cubanmiamiboy]

After an exhausting day at the salon-(all the ladies wanting to look their best..all right, but God, they kept coming on and on forever, until 8pm..!   )-I went straight to a friend's house in North Miami, where he and his huge family held a typical Cuban celebration in his backyard.  There were LITERALLY hundreds of people, and all that yummy Cuban food...pork, rice and beans, yucca, fried plantains, and all kinds of flans and desserts.  He hired a Deejay who played salsa music all night long, and the champagne bottles seemed endless, aside from all the bear and rum and coke, of course.  After the 12:00 toast, EVERYONE got out of the house to do this interesting traditional practice, that I have forgotten about.  People, including the little members,  take suitcases and go around the block and back to the house, while singing and congratulating everybody on the way.  This is a way to ask for lots of traveling in the new year.  

[Jack Reed]

Everybody in the neighborhood running about with suitcases?  Or just your party, huge though it was.  I'm trying to visualize it.  That's wild!  Thanks, Cristian.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Well, it was more like an airport/trip-simulating thing...everybody grabbing the suitcases and walking around the neighborhood and back.  I have heard about this tradition, but have never seen it.  This is usually done within big families, and my very short one was never pro this kind of celebrations.  Actually, as we were passing by other houses I saw other families getting out and joining our big procession, suitcases and everything.   .  This morning, when I woke up and called a friend to tell her about it, she told me that they had done it too in her own party...around her building.
What I remember the most when I was a kid was some neighbors grabbing a bucket filled of water and throwing it to the street from the front porche.  This way you were supposed to "clean" the newly paved way of the upcoming year, so it would run smooth.  My grany did it too.

[diane]

hey, that is really interesting! I had never heard about that before, Cristian!
Thanks for telling!

We (two DDs and husband) had a small party with some young friends and walzed to the blue-danube-walz at midnight.
(my family here is Austrian -so that is tradition!)

Wishing all of you a really good, healthy and happy new year! I am so glad to be able to come here to find people who have similar interests. Thank you.

-d-

[Alexandra]

Just a quick happy new year!  No party here -- just working on getting out  DanceView.

[bart]

cubanmiamiboy, on Jan 1 2010, 01:42 PM, said:

After the 12:00 toast, EVERYONE got out of the house to do this interesting traditional practice, that I have forgotten about.  People, including the little members,  take suitcases and go around the block and back to the house, while singing and congratulating everybody on the way.  This is a way to ask for lots of traveling in the new year.  

What a coincidence.  At the party last night, the hostess provided guests with descriptions of several New Years Eve traditions from around the world, which guests could participate in or not.  Somehow I missed this when it was being handed out and explained.  One of these traditions was the same SUITCASE ritual.   Empty suitcases were provided.  The sight of people wandering around carrying was a bit surreal, since I had not a clue about what was going on.

One tradition (Swiss) involved spilling cream on the floor to assure good fortune.  I walked through the kitchen, saw a large puddle of spattered cream in the center of the floor, assumed it had been an accident, and cleaned it up with paper towels.      I hope this did not cancel out  the good fortune which everyone was hoping for.

Another option we were offered was Japanese:  going to a designated space -- in this case, a room in the small garden house (labelled "Abusive Language Room") -- and railing aloud at the people, places, situations, etc., that had frustrated or angered us in the past year.  This is a technique, apparently, for letting go of negative feelings.  There is a special mountain in Japan used for this.  Large numbers of people climb it while shouting out their resentments.  I don't know how successful this was, but plenty of people seemed to be heading for the special room.

At midnight, we were offered skewers holding 12 white grapes.  We popped one grape into the mouth at each stroke leading to midnight.  This is Spanish and is a tradition I'd actually taken part in before.

[cubanmiamiboy]

bart, on Jan 1 2010, 02:33 PM, said:

At midnight, we were offered skewers holding 12 white grapes.  We popped one grape into the mouth at each stroke leading to midnight.  This is Spanish and is a tradition I'd actually taken part in before.

Oh, yes,bart...we had that too in our party!!