Several of our family members went for dinner and to the ballet tonight. It was our DD's fiance's first time ever seeing the Nutcracker, which is one of our annual Christmas events. (His family tends to sporty, while ours runs to fine arts.) We had great seats about 11 rows from the stage, dead center. A couple in front of us had apparently not been to the ballet before. They talked the entire time when they weren't taking selfies with their cell phones, obviously bored. Before the interval they were eating popcorn and drinking wine loudly, as though they were on a picnic. After the interval, more wine and a candy of some kind with a wrapper that rattled loudly every time she touched it. For the past few years The Atlanta Ballet has altered the choreography to make the three male Russian dancers into brightly colored buffoons, with blue hair and beards. These guys function as clowns and comic relief but are mediocre dancers and not very funny. Of course the kids In the audience love them, and most of the adults don't realize that's not part of the original choreography. The couple in front of us were hooting and hollering for the clowns in a semi-drunken haze.

In contrast, there was a child of about seven sitting on their same row who was spellbound by the ballet and very well behaved.

Moral of this story: don't attend an event you're not interested in enough to sit still, be quiet and pay attention!

Rant over, carry on with your usual Christmas programming!