You can't catch me!

I've been meaning to put these photos up for a while, and I finally had a free moment. Brian's semi-dying of what looks to be strep throat, so I'm being quiet while he sleeps as much as possible to get better for our trip to Montreal that starts tomorrow!

Anyway...a few weeks ago I was asked to do some storytelling at a winter wonderland event put on by one of the preschools I work with. I really wanted to use puppets, so after wracking my brain for a good puppetworthy story, I chose The Gingerbread Man. It's actually kind of a weird tale, since the main character gets eaten in the end, but he was kind of an ass anyway. And, as I found out, little kids do NOT CARE. They just like seeing puppets run around chasing each other.

And what funny puppets they turned out to be! Of course I procrastinated, and of course I had to make elaborate puppets, so the night before Brian and I stayed up late, making ears and noses and getting high off of craft glue fumes. In the end, I fell in love with my little handmade darlings, and the storytelling went very well.

Here are two of them, the horse and the rabbit, both characters that try, and ultimately fail, to catch the sneering gingerbread boy.



And here are the others. The clever fox who, I am well aware, looks perhaps a little bit more like a mouse or maybe a ferret, but I couldn't for the life of me find a redder sock than that...and of course, the unfortunate gingerbread man, who falls for the fox's helpful ruse and gets unceremoniously devoured in the end.



Ahhh, the holiday spirit.