How Christmas Saved The Grinch 2019

Throughout my life, I've enjoyed being a part of various musicals and holiday productions, even drama club when I was in high school. Although I can't sing (like at all) or dance (I do dance better than I sing), crowds never bothered me and I do memorize things fairly well. My enjoyment of the stage goes way back, to when I was 11 years old. Our former church was doing a children's Christmas production called "Twinkle and the All-Star Band". As a random chance happening, I was given the lead role of Twinkle, and that's where my love for it all began.

Fast forward to three years ago. Our church was hosting a Christmas production entitled "How Christmas Saved The Grinch", a spin on the typical Grinch stealing Christmas story. It was their third year to perform and I was having major FOMO. After the production was over, I approached our children's pastor's wife and told her if she ever needed any adult extras in the production, I would be more than happy to help. Well, enter 4th year of the Grinch (2018) and yes, I was given a role as an extra. I. Loved. It!

Although the story of Jesus is sprinkled throughout our production, it's not over the top and several years back, the local public schools began coming out as an optional field trip on the Friday of production week. They even have a chance to take a picture with Mr. Grinch and the cast after the production is over, which they love! Last year, we had almost 3,000 kids at our Friday performance and this year (our 5th year), we had almost 2,000!

I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Rewind to August of this year. I received a phone call from our children's pastor's wife that the lady who had played Betty Lou Who for the past 4 years was stepping down and she wanted to know if I was interested in having her part. I was incredibly honored and knew I had a big role to fill, especially when someone had been in that role for so many years. I said yes and reminded her about my singing and dancing abilities again. Thankfully, no singing had to be involved (with just my voice alone) and only minimal dancing.

So, last weekend was the 5th year to perform "How Christmas Saved The Grinch" and it was a smashing hit! In total, around 3,000 (ish) people were in attendance!

I also knew I wanted to take that role and make it my own. Throughout the five years, many different cast have played many different parts and each had their own unique spin on their characters. I set out to do just that.

Backstage was a flurry of activity once it became time to start getting dressed. About 75% of these costumes are hand sewn which blows my mind!

This table was once organized by characters and buckets but this is the aftermath! Hah!

My friend Mackenzie has played the part of the Narrator for the past 5 years and she always does an amazing job!

Time for noses! If you want to see the entire process of costuming and makeup, check out the Vlogidays video at the bottom of this post. :)

Almost ready!

The Grinch might have driven to McDonald's like this! The manager remembered him from last year and asked for a picture! Hah!

A little more behind the scenes of the cast...

You might remember the orange dress pictured here? That was my costume from last year!

Brayden was quite intrigued by my nose!

Playing the part of Betty Lou Who meant I was also the mom of Cindy Lou. :)

This was the closest Brayden would get to Mr Grinch!

We were trying to take a picture and we were photobombed by both the Grinch and one of our husbands! Haha whoops!

 

After Friday's performances were over, we decided to get shakes from Chick Fil A, makeup and all. It was rather hysterical if I do say so myself!

 

...and that's a wrap on How Christmas Saved The Grinch for 2019. Although we were sleep deprived, it was an amazing weekend filled with lots of wonderful memories! Until next year....

If you're interested in seeing the process of creating a "Who", check out the video above.

Have a fabulous day!

Only 364 Days To Go...

Christmas this year was unlike any other we'd shared thus far and I loved it! Looking back, we laughed about how Brayden has changed so much from his past three years of Christmas celebrations. 

On his first Christmas, he was only 10 months old and not very interested in opening presents at all. Last year, he was a year and a half and ok with it but didn't really care much about the opening presents part. This year though...he LOVED ripping paper and opening presents! Such a huge change from previous years. It really is amazing to see how much they grow, develop, and change as time passes by!

Anyway, we celebrated our little family Christmas on Saturday morning because our plan was to spend Christmas with my brother and family in Texas. Hauling all those presents to and from Texas didn't sound like a pleasant idea!

After we finished opening presents, we decided to take Brayden to Ihop for Grinch pancakes, which he then decided to call them "Grinch cakes"! His excitement over his "Grinch cakes" was hysterical!

On Sunday, we loaded up our vehicle and made our way to Texas to see my brother and his wife. No trip to Texas is complete without a stop at Buc-ee's!

Or seeing the Buc-ee's mascot for that matter!

That night, my brother took us to Wimberly, Texas to look at the trail of lights! These lights were gorgeous and so neat to see! Brayden LOVES Christmas lights, so this was a delight for him as well!

We made so many fun memories over the weekend and really enjoyed the time we were able to spend with my family! 

This giant gift bag was almost as tall as Brayden!  I couldn't resist putting him inside! :) 

Now, the saddest day of the year for me has arrived...the day after Christmas. I absolutely hate when everything is over, all of the presents are opened and the family gatherings are through. It just all goes by so fast! Oh well, only 364 days to go....

How Christmas Saved The Grinch 2018

Can you believe there's just a week and a few days until Christmas? I definitely cannot! It's crazy how fast this past year has flown by. I say it every year, but it's true!

Last weekend, my church put on their annual Christmas production entitled "How Christmas Saved The Grinch" and I was lucky enough to be a part! Last year, I told the director that I was willing to do "whatever", so I became an extra and after 15 weeks of practice, it was time for production weekend!

I honestly never realized just how much went into the behind the scenes roles of making this production come together, but it's quite a bit of work! Not only were most of the costumes hand sewn and the sets made from scratch, but on the day of the production, the noses had to be put on 8 actors and hair and makeup had to be done for 18+ actors which took several hours to complete!

This production is the sweetest - it tells the story of The Grinch who hates Christmas. He meets Cindy-Lou who introduces him to Jesus and...well, after his encounter with Jesus, his heart grew three sizes that day!

On Friday, we performed two shows for the schools (it's an approved field trip in our parish) with over 3,000 kids in attendance. The on Sunday, we performed two additional shows for the public with almost 2,000 in attendance! I'd call it a hit!

For the past four years, we've taken this picture together, and it's fun to see how Brayden (and we) have changed over the years! I was pregnant in our very first picture in 2015!

As a huge surprise, Brayden actually sat for a few seconds to take a picture with The Grinch! I couldn't hardly believe it myself!

After it was all said and done on Friday, we celebrated with shakes from Chick Fil A! Mine was (of course) a peppermint shake! Yum!

If you're interested in seeing a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what it takes to make Whoville come to life, check out my Vlogidays video below!

Thanks for following along! I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season! Have a great weekend!! :)

Vlogidays Weekend Edition #4

This holiday season is seriously flying by! I can't believe it's only two weeks until Christmas!

Throughout this past weekend, I shared our crazy snow day with you as well as my long run, time spent with family, and our church production of The Grinch! It was another fabulous weekend where we made amazing memories that I know will last forever (and I'm not just saying that...we really had an amazing weekend)!

Thanks for sharing in our holiday weekends this year with us! We hope you're enjoying all the special moments this season has to offer!

If you've missed previous any Vlogidays videos, check them out on the Vlogs Tab located in the header at the top of the homepage!

How Christmas Saved The Grinch

A few weekends ago, I had the privilege of helping behind the scenes with our church's Christmas musical, How Christmas Saved the Grinch. My involvement in this production was on a MUCH SMALLER scale (like 2% compared to the norm), but I still had a ton of fun regardless and everyone did an incredible job!

Our morning began bright and early (7 a.m.) to begin working on hair and makeup. Thankfully, Starbucks was offered and I jumped right on it! Peppermint Mocha, please! :)

This girl's hair took over half an hour to complete, but we were pleased with the results! Whoville hair and makeup is a bit on the wacky side! :)

The set! In order to create this musical, they watched a stage production of the Grinch on from Universal Studios on YouTube and followed it as close as possible.

The production was SO cute!

So, how did Christmas save the Grinch, you might ask? Well, Cindy Lou Who introduced him to Jesus...and his heart grew three sizes that day! :)

Honestly, this is one of the best productions I've seen in a long time (and I can say that because I wasn't directly involved)! From the set designers to the actors, the costume-makers (most of the costumes you see were hand sewn), and the musical/lighting crew...I was blown away!  I loved the Broadway style feel of it all and they truly did an excellent job!

Melissa and I might have stood in line like kids at Disney World for a picture with the Grinch. It was amusing to say the least!

Mackenzie had a lead role as the Narrator and she did an excellent job!

On Sunday night, a reception was held for the cast and crew. How cute are these cupcakes?! Love it!

I also received a gift from the Grinch for helping out! :) The bag was filled with yummy goodies, too!

My only wish is that I would have had the chance to see this production an additional time. I did hear talk that it might be back for 2nd time next year, so we'll see!!

Happy Monday! Hope you all have a great week! :)

Have you ever been involved in a stage production of any kind? If so, what was it?