A Christmas Carol

A lovely start to the holiday season was planned for me as a surprise from my beloved husband.

He had been in California on business all week and when we were speaking on the phone on the Friday he suddenly told me that he had arranged a surprise for me on the Saturday night and I was to get myself organised for an adult night out without the baby.

I have been very nervous about leaving the baby with anyone for any length of time, no reflection on my friends but rather on my separation anxiety. Jarlath knew this and also knew that I would not take the first step so decided on a forced intervention to make me leave her.

My night out was to see the play A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) at the Ford Theatre in Washington DC. Lovely on many levels as the Ford Theatre is a historic landmark in DC and is the very theatre where Abraham Lincoln was assasinated.

http://www.fordstheatre.org/home/about-fords



I had visited it last year during the day on a free theatre tour and we had discussed going to see A Christmas Carol last year but, unfortunately, when we tried to book tickets they were all sold out. So Jarlath had clearly stored this information away and made plans for us to go this year. I had re-read the book last year as one of my Christmas reads and was well versed on the story (but who isn't on this popular tale). The production was just delightful and as the theatre was very small parts of the play actually took place in the aisles amongst the audience and when the smoke machine was going you were engulfed in smoke adding to the feeling of sitting in a foggy day in London town. The cast were also very good and all through the play I thought they were actually British until at the end a couple of them spoke and they turned out to be American - gold star to their voice coaches!

But where was Hannah I hear you ask! Well she was safely tucked up in the home of our friends Kim and Andrew Yang. They have a six month old boy, Alexander, so are up to date on child care. Jarlath had secretly arranged with Kim for us to drop Hannah off at their house before the performance for them to watch her for the evening and we would then pick her up on our way home - perfect as they only live 10 minutes from our new house. I was anxious that she would be unsettled and cry all evening and not be fun to be with. Well my perfect little baby was just that. We left her at 6.00p.m. and she was sound asleep by 6.40p.m. she then slept through the whole evening until they had to wake her up to give her her 10.30p.m. feed. We got back just after 11.00p.m. and she was fussing slightly but nothing to worry about. We then took her home, tucked her up in her crib and she slept through until 8.30a.m. the next morning. Clearly she is unperturbed by being in a strange house with different people. It must have helped that she is used to Kim as we have had several play dates with the kids over the weeks.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable evening and a great to start to get me in the mood for the Holiday season. No Bah Humbug here this year!

H Xx