Christmas Lights Shinning Bright

   Christmas is upon us at last but only one day removed from closing A Little Princess I feel in a bit of a fog. 8 shows have come to pass; the boxes sealed, pictures posted, bin closed, and shirts signed. I keep thinking it will get easier each time but it doesn't. The faces and places continue to change but one thing remains the same, the fact that once we conclude a SFA show the bond we have created is so strong it is hard to say goodbye to what united us for 2 1/2 months. Each and every step and line is hard to keep from racing through your mind especially the thought that you have done it for the last time. These moments we can't ever reclaim almost torture me and its strange to think how it all will change entirely. ( I don't know why a lot of that rhymed >-< )
    Producing these musicals and now having 8 casts, 8 families you wont completely unite in that way again puts time in perspective quick. Sometimes I feel like none of it matters as it is sand  running through the cracks in my hand. All that work goes into one weekend and then if you let it it doesn't exist. Poof it is gone. After growing so attached it is hard to keep saying goodbye, yet it is the nature of the mission.
    Christmas is often a time for melancholy or even depression for some,  those nostalgic hauntings of a better time when perhaps our families were still whole and well seem to swirl all around us. I feel like this, remembering traditions like Christmas day visiting our great grandparents house on our dads side and the whole family being there. Now they have both gone to the Father, tradition broken.
       Instead of letting our memories live as only that, good times be forgotten or living to only recall them, or most importantly allowing the relationships we have built with people fade to nothing we gotta put the past, present, and future in their place. I live by a few rules to make the moments more than only that......moments.

         1. Do things with a purpose: more than personal pleasure to make the world better on hug and smile and tear at a time. If it doesn't make someone's life better don't do it. This is a sense of duty which always keeps us pressing on to our next big goal instead of only looking back
         2. Laugh: make the best of every situation have fun when you should hate what you doing, . make each moment the best it can be for you and others around you.
         3. Build unselfish relationships Stay in touch: love people just for being people and vbe there for them for them whether they treat great or poor do what you think is best for them. Once they are out of your for Immediate lives DON'T LET PEOPLE YOU SHARED SOMETHING WITH BECOME STRANGERS, occasionally ask them how things are. Some drift away, they will and there is nothing you can do. Don't be the one drifting ( as long as they do not negatively impact your life)
         4. Take trips down memory lane, pictures, videos, mementoes: cherish the emotions we recall when remembering
         5. Learn something from everyone and thing and apply it to life: pull a moral, a self improvement from every activity which then lives through us. This keeps the memories tangible.
         6. Let those we lose live through us: if we lose someone we love let what they taught us or what it meant to know them affect our every day life. Sometimes it is death or other times it is life that gets between us. Give every person worth.
         7. Pray for those we lose: In death or friendships ruined or lost or loves gone cold
         8. Let the past live through us, live in the PRESENT, live for the future
     

  A Little Princess was an incredible experience filled with remarkable people I pray are always in my life and involved with Sing For America. I told the cast to let what we learned here and the love we shared change us and in turn change our circles, spread through our community and in that way A Little Princess will live on forever." Let Your Heart Be Your Compass", "follow after what you've always loved and take the rest in stride", and finally "may God bring good things to you".