always something new to discover

This year, we decided to become Those People and get annual passes for yet another theme park, Knott's Berry Farm. It's so far been a wise investment, because this poor old park is barely squeaking by. The few times that we have gone, we've been part of a handful of people in the entire park, which is a nice change from the hustle and bustle of Disneyland (and also more than a little sad). So Kate and I decided to dash over there yesterday and soak in some of the holiday cheer. We were excited, because it had been raining and COLD around here the past few days, and on Thursday morning all the bad weather suddenly went away. The sun came out, the clouds went away, and all was right in the world. The first surprise was PEOPLE. There were people (!) in the park!! The second surprise was the craft fair. I mean, we knew it was there, but it was nice to see the vendors all lined up and selling their wares. Most of it was ridiculously overpriced, even though I completely appreciate the hard work of hand-crafted things. But a lot of it wasn't handmade, or handmade in America anyway. Which isn't bad necessarily, but things that you are buying in bulk from Mexico shouldn't qualify. But whatever. I did, of course, find some ridiculous things that I had to buy (banana earrings! chicken necklace!).

Another, uh, surprise was that the Birdcage Theater was open and there was a show running, a 25 minute version of A Christmas Carol. So Kate and I went in to see it. I don't think in my entire life I have ever seen this theater open, so it was neat to see inside, although it was a pretty standard theater with cramped, uncomfortable chairs (that have probably been there since the 70's). But we went in with an open mind. Unfortunately, an open mind wasn't enough to save this sweet little show. The sets were very creative and the costumes were nice and the edits to the story to make it brief were okay, but... there was something fundamentally flawed. The actors were working hard, but it seemed like they were working with a crappy script. They couldn't decide if they were supposed to be lighthearted and joke-y (to engage the audience) or delivering a serious stage show, so they waivered back and forth. The jokes written in were all wrong. Seeing Scrooge do a heel click when he decides to no longer be a curmudgeon was funny, but didn't fit with the rest. My personal opinion was that ye olde english was not the right choice, especially for the demographic. But I digress. After this show, we headed over to the Charles Schulz Theater for the Snoopy's Cool Christmas Ice Show, which promised an ice skating Snoopy. 'Nuff said. And they didn't disappoint. It was better than expected with really great performers and fantastic choreography. In between acts, there were short vignettes featuring the Peanuts characters with brief clips from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. We had CB complaining about the over commercialization of Christmas (during a Peanuts ice show! ha!) with Linus. And then they slipped something into our cocoa... the Christmas mushrooms kicked in and we were whisked away into an alternate North Pole with purple snowmen and pink penguins skating alongside neon yellow trees (these pictures don't capture the color saturation AT ALL)...




Then once the drugs had settled in nicely, Charlie Brown laments that no one knows the real reason for Christmas, so Linus toddled out to center stage to convert us all to Christianity.



and THEN all religion broke out on stage... the skaters danced tastefully to Night Divine...



and THEN a gospel number. At the end Snoopy grew a magic Christmas tree (by peeing on it, apparently) before the gifts opened up and live doves flew into it.

Full of Jeebus, we found ours tummies growling. So, of course, we had to have funnel cake. Fortunately, we know how to do it (all one giant bite!!) right.