How My Wrapping Paper Ended Up With an Identity Crisis This Christmas

The holiday season crept up on me this year. It usually does. As a music teacher, my holiday rehearsal and program season begins in September and doesn't let up until the first day of winter break. It can last longer, depending on the commitments I've made within the community. By Christmas, I'm ready to hole up in a room somewhere, away from the general public, until the second week of January.

I barely decorated my house this year, although I did put up a tree. Come to think of it, my husband, Dan, took care of that too. It wouldn't have happened if it had been left up to me.

I did wrap my gifts. Not well, but I wrapped them, nevertheless. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will recall that I am a bit of a failed gift wrapper.

One night, I found the cutest Christmas ornament wrapping paper hidden away in our closet. Dan had gone snowboarding in Sun Valley, leaving me with the whole evening to wrap his gifts.

"I wonder why I don't remember this paper from last Christmas?" I thought.

Dan came home late that night.

"All of your presents are wrapped," I bragged.

"Cool."

A few minutes later, he joined me in the living room and asked, "Why are there birthday gifts under our tree?"

"There aren't any birthday gifts under the--oh shit!" I exclaimed and slapped my forehead. "Birthday balloons?! I thought they were ornaments! It took me forever to wrap those gifts."

"That's hilarious."

"Should I wrap them again?"

"No, it's fine," Dan said. "It's difficult enough for you in the first place."

A few days later, I saw this photo on the Internet. I showed it to Dan.

"Oh yeah, this is what I meant," I told him.

He didn't buy it.

On Christmas morning, Dan kept saying things like, "You mean, I don't have to wait until April to open this?" (Because Dan's birthday is in April. Clever, very clever.)

A couple of gifts later, he said, "Only one more birthday gift to open."

Then he paused.

"This is the last time I'll get to make fun of you," he said.

"I'm sure you'll find something else eventually."

He stared at the gift for a moment.

"You're going to miss this so much," I said, rolling my eyes.

Finally, he opened the last present wrapped in birthday balloons.

It's the thought, not the wrapping paper, that counts anyway.

Right?

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Eleventh Anniversary Fun

Dan and I just celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary on Saturday. Number eleven is not one of the "big ones." It's a year after the tenth, so maybe the anniversary gods just figure couples are all partied out by the eleventh. In fact, the traditional gift for eleven years is steel. What the hell kind of of gift is that?

"Good thing we don't get gifts based on the number of years like those crazy people in Gone Girl," Dan said.

"Good thing we don't do a lot of things like those crazy people in Gone Girl," I said.

Now most of my faithful readers will know that Dan and I have never had kids. I have almost six hundred students, and being a teacher is the best birth control ever.

But this anniversary, we felt a little like parents, at least temporarily, because most our special day was spent with my "kids."

Saturday morning, we woke up early, and ran in a Christmas Fun Run with my school's running group. Yes, Dan and I chose to spend the first half of my anniversary with sixty-nine of my students, their family members, and my teacher friends.

Post Fun Run fun

That evening, Dan and I went to The Nutcracker. The ballet probably would not have been Dan's choice for a romantic anniversary date, but two of my students were dancing in the production, and a few of them were singing in the children's chorus. I had been telling them all for months that I was coming to see them.

Anniversary date to the ballet

Actually, Dan didn't mind The Nutcracker that much.

"It's kind of cool story," he said, "although the story part is over by the second half."

I also woke up in the middle of my anniversary night, casting my school's production of Oliver in my head and worrying about disappointing my students in the process. The things we do for our "kids."

One of my student's parents said, "That's what parents do, spend their anniversaries with their children. And then you just move your anniversary to a different day."

I would never claim to work as hard as an actual parent though. Maybe I'm more like the cool aunt who advises the kids going to sleepover that they should eat lots of sugar that night.

And I get to give them all back at the end of the day.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

Making the Case for Frozen

Last summer, Dan and I saw Gracie Gold skate in the Sun Valley Ice Show. During one of her solos, she floated out onto the ice, dressed in a glittery, robin egg blue leotard. A hush fell over the audience, and the music began.

All of a sudden, the parents in the audience collectively groaned, "Oh . . ." while the little girls beside them squealed and started to sing along.

Gracie Gold was skating to "Let it Go," the smash hit from the phenomenon known as Frozen.

I finally watched Frozen last weekend. I know. I'm about a year behind everyone else in the world.

I am not a mom, but I try to stay hip to kids' stuff because of my job. Even Dan watched it with me.

"I'm curious," he said.

I think it was mostly because he wanted to see what Robert Lopez, who composed the songs with his lyricist wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, would do with a kids' movie. Robert Lopez composed the music for Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon. (If you're not sure why this is significant, just Google it. You'll find out quickly.)

And the Lopez team did have some fun with the lyrics. Case in point: "Why have a ballroom with no balls?"

This year, I bought a Frozen songbook for my music classes. My choir students (even some of the boys) make me lead a Frozen sing along before rehearsal most mornings. I try to avoid the ballroom-with-no-balls song.

I have heard from parents that siblings fight over who gets to like Elsa and who gets to like Anna. One parent I talked to was relieved that one of her little girls was on Team Anna and the other was on Team Elsa.

The other day, I was trying to appear cool to a three-year-old, and I mistakenly pronounced "Anna" with a short vowel (rhyming it with Hannah). I was immediately corrected.

"It's Anna," the three-year-old said with a royal air, pronouncing the "a" vowels "ah" (like in father).

I decided I had better watch the movie so that I didn't lose all credibility with the six hundred kids that darken my classroom door everyday.

The verdict?

I thought it was a great story, surprisingly focused on the strength of the female characters, although their waists are still too small.

One of my Frozen fanatic students said with a knowing grin, "I bet you loved the 'Let it Go' scene."

I did and not just because of the awesome animation sequence where she flips her hands around and creates the best ice palace ever.

I had heard a lot of my music friends complain about "Let it Go" being poorly written and overplayed and badly sung by amateurs. But the song is about a woman's coming of age, and she doesn't even have to get married at the end, like in most Disney princess movies.

In fact, Anna, who takes the typical Disney princess route and falls in love at first sight instead of getting to know the guy first, actually finds out Prince Charming is not so charming.

Elsa, however, is going to do things the way she wants, not the way her society wants. She is not going to hide the feminine power that makes her unique and a little dangerous. The song's message is one of women's liberation, except her waist is still too small.

My students know Idina Menzel now. They think they discovered her. Never mind her almost-twenty-year theater career. But Frozen has made this Broadway veteran a household name for my kiddos. I love it.

I have deep conversations with my kindergartners now on the science of Olaf and how he loves the warm summer, but if he gets too warm he will melt, so Elsa gives him his own cloud, and that is so exciting. And then we get up and pretend to melt like snowmen to music. I am teaching high and low, and the kindergartners don't even know what hit them.

The kids at school keep telling me about a Frozen sequel. I'm not sure how that will work out because . . . you know . . . origin stories.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

Santa Claus May Not Throw Up On Our House This Year

I might not get my decorations up this Christmas. I don't have a good reason, other than I am not very motivated.

For those of you who don't already know, I'm a music teacher, and Christmas is a crazy time of year for me. It's like one perpetual concert. Sometimes during the holidays, I have heard "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" so many times that I want to come home to nothing Christmas-y at all.

If Fox News (or Stephen Colbert) knew I existed, I might be accused of declaring a "War on Christmas." I have already been accused by a Tea Party guy of single-handedly removing "the Christ from Christmas" in our public schools. That was the same year I was also told that I didn't include enough traditional druid songs like, "Walkin' in a Wiccan Wonderland." You'll forgive me if I sometimes get a little too Christmas-ed out to trim the tree.

My husband, Dan, and I have one window of opportunity to decorate our house, the Saturday or Sunday after Thanksgiving. If we don't do it then, the chances of getting it done are slim to none.

Most years, we spend that Saturday or Sunday listening to Christmas music while Dan puts up the (fake) tree, and I flit from room to room, trying to remember how I made space for everything the year before.

After we're done, Dan looks around the living room and says, "Yup. It looks like Santa Claus threw up on our house."

This year, Dan did put up the (fake) tree, but I went grocery shopping instead because . . . you know . . . well . . . food.

The truth is, I'm not really feeling it this weekend either because . . . well . . . I need to buy food again.

So, will we put up decorations this year?

It's a mystery . . . even to me . . .

Maybe I'll just go to Sun Valley and enjoy someone else's handiwork.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.