Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat....

The holidays are upon us, or rather, the holidays have sneakily crept up behind us and...WHAM!...Starbucks suddenly has Christmas cups and has replaced the pumpkin spice latte with the gingerbread latte and peppermint mocha. Nothing like Starbucks to help remind one of the changing of seasons and holidays.
And so sets into motion a dizzyingly busy time of year. For musicians, the holidays are a time to make an extra buck here and there, and for young singers, the weeks leading up to Christmas are chock full of auditions. Add in the family events, parties, and if you're me, finishing up the quarter at school, and you've got one hell of a crazy couple of months.
Next week Nick and I will be traveling to Indianapolis for Thanksgiving with the fam. I'm really looking forward to it, since I haven't seen my immediate family members for a few months or my extended family members for nearly half a year. Thanksgiving with my family is always a good time...plenty of overeating, adult beverages, card games, and general merrymaking. I'm in charge of sweet potatoes and one dessert this year. I'm planning a ridiculously rich layered pumpkin cake with pecan praline frosting. YUM!
After returning from Indianapolis, I will be heading to Cincinnatti for my Pittsburgh Opera Center audition, then heading back home to finish off the quarter at NU. Another audition for Utah Opera (this time in Chicago, thank God), a gig singing Gretel with the Glen Ellyn Children's Chorus, and some church gigs...and then I'm off to Greece for Christmas!!!! That's right, I'll be spending the Christmas and New Year's holidays with my boyfriend in his Heimatland. I'm so excited, a little nervous, and feeling a wee bit odd that I won't be spending Christmas with my family for the first time in 24 years. But as my mom said, "Christmas can be anytime, anyplace." She also reminded me that things are changing in our family; I will have a new brother-in-law soon and will have to share my sister with another family.
That aside...I'm absolutely elated to experience a new country and see where Nick was born and spent half his life. I've got some Greek tapes and a workbook, so I'm slowly making my way through that crazy script they've got. Athens seems like an extremely cool city, and I'm already overwheliming myself with all the things I want to do and see while we're there.
So, expect blogs to be sparse for the next couple of weeks, but look forward to some photo documentaries: amazing Greece pictures, and possibly some less exciting pictures of Midwestern cities and my relatives.

(Contest: whomever can finish the sentence that is the title of this post, which is a children's song, wins....A shout out in my next blog. And maybe a drink if I go out to bars with you.)