Conceptualizing is FUN!

Sometimes the creative spirit comes at you like a bolt of lightening and you have to obey the course of that thought or else it completely and utterly fizzles.

Here's what happened.

I was honestly discouraged by the prospect of skating to Gabriels' Message. It's a lovely song, but the problem that revisiting an old program presents is old bad habits returning to the surface. I found myself stifled by choreography that is 6 years old and couldn't see past it to create something new. I attempted new elements and new steps only to find it all felt OLD.

I tried this on two separate sessions, and came to the realization that I had to let Sting go.

Faced with training a silver freeskate test program and choreographing a new comedy routine (hellooooooo, Dan!?), in a snit fit at a family roadside diner named "EAT!", I wrote the Christmas program off to Dave and said, "forget it, I'll just skip the Christmas show this year," and reveled in my calendar opening up in December.

Flash-forward a few hours to road construction in Dayton, OH and my husband's joy at finding the all-Christmas station. On came a very Broadway-esque version of "Need a Little Christmas!" This song always cracked me up with its combination of gaiety and urgency, "we NEED a little CHRISTMAS! Right THIS VERY MINUTE!"

This lead to talking about those moments in life when you indeed do need a little shot of Christmas, like on the worst holidays of the year...

And in an instant, I had my concept for the Christmas show. I get to be a calendar girl whose page-a-day calendar goes horribly wrong, until we finally flip to Christmas.

I can't wait to get started.