Santa's Frosty Follies

Part 1 of a special report from guest correspondent Kristina Krow. She has promised me that next year I can attend this little event with her. I can hardly wait....


Santa's Frosty Follies
It's that time of year again when you get invited to holiday musicals, plays and recitals. Many of us have attended the delightful productions starring our extremely smart, talented and good-looking offspring. Through the years I have attended Sue's Performing Stars recitals, complete with an adult red-headed little person who was a beginner ballerina; various holiday shows from This Side of the Hill Players, most notably some crazy one about a Toy Factory; the Spindrift School "Knight's tale" starring my nephew the dragon; numerous Ragazzi, The Peninsula Boys Chorus (actually you have to say it like that: "Ragazzi, The Peninsula Boys Chorus"...you must never just say Ragazzi) performances in malls and at drafty old churches; and even the Urban School Circus with my kid on the trapeze. Hee Ha!

This year we experience the most daring and delightful expression of holiday cheer...yes, once again the Lincoln Hills Players offered us their rendition of "Santa's Frosty Follies" starring my Mother and Father in-laws (who for the record - I am very fond of). It was more than bad, it was painful. It was an assault to all my senses. It was long, 2 hours and 40 minutes of pure horror. During the single intermission Noah pitched a fit, kicked things and said the F-word because we made him go back in for the second half.

A little background before I continue....My mother and father in law live in this retirement community called Lincoln Hills. click here for more info:
http://www.delwebb.com/homefinder/Community.aspx?ID=100007
It's like a resort, with non-stop activities from Mah-Jong to softball, trips, and tap dancing, fitness, golf, tennis, craft classes..just about anything you could think of. My in-laws (MIL and FIL) have been involved with the shows there for about 3 years. MIL tap dances and she is very cute. Many of her fellow tappers are over 70 with one actually in her 90's. Check out the gams on the blue hairs. FIL enjoys singing and thinks of himself as quite the MC. So that brings you up to speed. They love this stuff and their year revolves around when the shows are and the rehearsal schedule etc.

This year we got the command demand for our presence from the in-laws, it was must see, and we must be in the audience for one of the 5 performances of "Santa's Frosty Follies." Have you ever seen Waitingfor Guffman? Well, hold onto that vibe.

MIL and FIL are theproducers of this show, it says so on the program, we are related to the producers of this show. They are way into this.

Our day started with a 3 hour ride in traffic to get to the show. The line of ticket holders stretched through the lobby of the clubhouse and was as long a football field. We arrive in time to get in to the very end of the line as the doors are opened, securing ourselves a seat in the back of an auditorium holding more than 500 people. 500 hundred people bought tickets to this. The program is opened and we see the list of 24 acts. Some include grandchildren of the residents.
There is an older boy along with all the cute little kids, he is awkward and humiliated by being forced to participate with Grams and Gramp in the show, we applaud more loudly just for him, and breathe a sigh of relief that no one asked Noah to be in this.

We counted down the acts. "Ok only 9 more to go until intermission, alright just 8 1/2 more to go. Hang in there only 8 left." There were too many to remember, they have blurred together or have I simply blocked them out. There was Leroy the Red-Neck Reindeer, Pinky and her gang of elves with a Christmas rap; we were treated to dancing trees, that looked like the Stanford mascot, no purpose, they just dancing and elves danced with them, to the Nutcracker. Hanukkah was represented and a nativity scene, no reference to Kwansaa though. Santa, Mrs.
Clause (double cast) were part of the show along with the hosts Mr. and Mrs. Cane - Candy and Clavin. Candy always called Calvin by his pet name "Shuggy". Or Shuggy Wuggy (ooh I think I just threw up a little in my mouth) . We were told at the beginning of the show that the actress playing Candy Cane has lost her voice, so she would only be mouthing the words, and a disembodied voice over the loud speaker would serve up Candy's lines. Almost like watching a Japanese monster movie, Candy's mouth wasn't moving in sync with the words, but oh well the show must go on.

In my opinion there were just too many elves. There were 6 Regular elves and 4 Sparkle elves. A Sparkle elf has a slightly different fashion sense wearing a silver puffy vest and glitter all over. Those Sparklers are in charge of making the high tech toys, in case you didn't know. My FIL was a Sparkle elf named Sebastian. A funny thing about these 65+ year old elves, they all talked like babies. Mithes Clath hath thum cookies for uth in her bakawee. Do you wanth acookie? Lets thneak the cookies. Be vawe vawe careful. Thebasthin, where are you? So these darn elves spend the whole 2 hours and 40 minutes running around talking with speech impediments, and asking about f-ing cookies every 5 minutes. It was woven into every act. I could not believe my FIL had agreed to play this part - he was the dumb elf! Hard to believe he was saying this stuff, and I shuddered at the thought that he may have actually written some of dialogue.

SPOILER ALERT -


In the end we find that Sebastian the Sparkle only spoke with that terrible lisp is because he had a large piece of toffee stuck in his teeth the whole time. At one point I put my head down between my knees and plugged my ears. I could still hear the babyish elf voices, I wanted to scream but got the giggles instead. Friends of this blog will remember when I got the giggles at an outdoor movie, at a very important part of the story, in fact a very inappropriate time to get the giggles. These same friends know that my giggles once released can not be contained. Snorting usually follows, and then chaos and mass hysteria. So it was at the follies, a yawn led to the dam being broken open, full snortage occurred, and much snickering. A lull would come over me for a moment, only to burst forth again with the snort, giggle, shaking and quivering, it looks like a convulsion. I later apologized to the man next to us, thinking I had ruined his experience and he said he didn't notice as he was also trying to contain himself.