Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Monday, February 16, 2015

Staged

In honour of Family Day, I present . . . my family . . .
I’m sure it was a normal, every-year, run-of-the-mill holiday.
Everywhere but at the Tolley home.
Maybe I should explain . . .
My Husby and I have six children.
Six.
Originally, we were going for a baseball team, but we ran out of steam somewhere around short stop.
Sooo . . . six kids. Ages five to seventeen.
It was Christmas time and we had to do something with them. Hmmm . . .What if we put them all on the stage? Had our own theatre company?
Well, it made sense to us.
Moving on . . .
For that one magical Christmas, we had just that.
The Tolley Troubadours. Specializing in Dinner Theatre Who-done-its.
Our most famous play? The Demise of Santa Claus.
Okay, Broadway, we weren’t. But we sure had fun.
The players:
The Grinch. Our Seventeen-year-old. Self-proclaimed hater of Santa Claus and everything he stood for. And possessor of many and varied instruments of death and destruction whose sole purpose was the final end of the aforementioned and hapless Claus.
Scrooge. Our sixteen-year-old. Hater of everyone equally. And not above threatening anyone who interfered with him (i.e. tried to engage him in conversation. Or smiled/looked at him.)
Alfie the Elf. Our thirteen-year-old. Mobile-mouthed purveyor of all things ‘cookie’. Not averse to a little bribery when the mood took him.
Mrs. Claus. Our eleven-year-old. Heavily made up, padded and hunched over model of sweetness and light. Until someone questioned her honesty. Then watch the rolling pin come out.
Angel Sweetface. Our eight-year-old. Wealthy, angelic example of life lived well. A little too well. Heaven forbid that anything should interfere with her rather skewed view of the world.
Elfie the Elf. Our five-year-old. Son of Alfie. And mute. Until moments of stress/surprise/revelation when he became remarkably conversant and effusive. Strange.
Inspector Clueso. My Husby. Bumbling, inept investigator of all things mysterious. Namely every person on the playbill.
Bambi. Me. Feather-brained mistress of ceremonies. Woefully type-cast.
And there it is. The line up.
Before, during and after a good dinner, based on the clues gleaned from presented scenes, the guests had to figure out who ‘done it’.
Most guessed a Tolley.
Surprisingly, they were right. Just not right enough.
It was hard to figure out who had the most fun.
The guests.
Or the players.
Yep. The best of holidays.

P.S. Looking for some unique entertainment for your celebrations?
Not too particular about quality and/or expertise?
I have someone I can recommend . . .

15 comments:

  1. You all sound like you have so much fun~ I'd love to be a fly on the wall.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It sounds like you had a lot of fun Diane... ;-)

    Ah... the moody teenagers make the best Scrooges and Santa haters... lol

    I am not sure how you and your husby survived those years... I had to put years in between my two and that's not easy... but 6 children in the household... you two deserve an award. Most parents do :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The older ones help look after the younger. It actually works out well . . . for the most part . . . :)

      Delete
  3. you are brave to have 6 children My husband also wanted a baseball team lol I told him 1 every 15 years lol But large families are fun.
    Now mine are grown and I miss little ones to fuss over.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The fun is the thing..never mind excellence in presentation.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sounds like such a good time!

    Please please please tell us "whodunit" ... or I won't be able to sleep tonight! Maybe just a hint?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was . . . dun-dun-duuunnnn . . . Angel Sweetface. Little Cretin.

      Delete
    2. Not Angel Sweetface!! Say it isn't so!!!

      *faints dead away*

      Delete
  6. That is so amazing what a fun family it must have been to grow up with you! I can only imagine. I would love to live close to you! Between both being huge campers and just watching the rest. I'm not an actor but I always wanted to dress the props, build the backgrounds for things like that. It would just be so much fun!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We sure could use you, Rena! Let me know when you're nearby. I'm sure we'll have any or all of those duties just for you!!!

      Delete
  7. Your own theatre company!! I'm so impressed, and it sounds like you had so much fun with it.
    I once wanted six children, but stopped at four, we only had six chairs around the dining table.

    ReplyDelete

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