Nutcracker Ballet Ticket Giveaway
byThe Goh Ballet is presenting the world premiere of The Nutcracker December 17th to 20th, 2009 at the Centre for Performing Arts in Vancouver.
Featuring Principal Dancers from The National Ballet of Canada and the choreography of Anna-Marie Holmes, it’s great to see another Christmas classic coming to a Vancouver stage this season. The performance also includes students from across the Lower Mainland, the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, a real magician, and all new sets and costumes. There will be a show each evening along with two matinee shows on the 19th and 20th.
Tickets range from $28 to $75 and are available online from Ticketmaster. I have also been given tickets for a contest on my site so that a lucky reader and their guest can experience this magical evening.
To enter to win tickets to The Nutcracker (to see Clara, Drosselmeyer, the Mouse King, and the Sugar Plum Fairy) please leave a comment below noting one of your most special Christmas memories. Hopefully the winner of the tickets will be able to make some great new memories that include a night out with a loved one and The Nutcracker.
Update: Thank you to everyone for sharing such amazing Christmas memories. I drew a winner at random this afternoon and it was Kelsey. Congratulations!
The winner will receive two tickets for the performance Thursday, December 17 at 7:30pm and will be chosen at random December 15th. If they are unable to use the tickets, I will draw another winner within 24 hours.
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hmmmm best Christmas memory?
Would have to be the year I finally got rollerblades! They were so great. This amazing pattern of neon pink/yellow/white and so amazing I was so excited that I took them out the next day with my dad and made it 1/2 way around the seawall before I was in tears from falling so much 🙂
Christmas and honeymoon in San Francisco, and seeing the Nutcracker there, almost 30 y ago!
I would love to see this. My favourite Christmas memory would have to be when I was younger and still believed in Santa. We put out cookies, milk and carrots for the reindeer, and the next morning there were foot prints and paw prints in the snow in our backyard and Santa forgot his hat in our backyard.
My parents made it really special.
I used to dance the Nutcracker with the Royal City Youth Ballet as a child. I love this ballet! Such a great Christmas tradition. Hopefully, I can bring my 7 year old niece who is currently dancing at my old ballet studio.
Thanks!
Already visioning sugerplum fairies!!
My daughter loves the Nutcracker. She did part of it for her dance recital a few years ago.
Going to USA for the first time (from the Philippines) as a child, and being introduced to the wonders of Toys-R-Us and Disneyland.
Listening to CBC’s The Vinyl Cafe Christmas episode and driving around the city looking at Christmas lights.
I love the Nutcracker and see it almost every year. One of my best Christmas memories is going to see the National Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre when I was a child. My mum and I got dressed up for the occasion and I felt like a real grown-up!
There was a year I had a small role in a Christmas musical production. We practiced for weeks, I had a costume, and I sang with the other children. I loved it.
Merry Christmas!
Best Christmas was in ’96 when three families who live in different cities across Canada, came together for a major reunion. About 130 presents under the tree that year. 🙂 We normally don’t give each other gifts within our nuclear family. Good times!
When I was fifteen, Mom and Dad surprised us with a trip to Disney World – memorable because we took the trip at the end of January, so it’s like it was Christmas twice!
My favourite Christmas memory was going to see the Nutcracker every year when I was younger and taking ballet lessons. I would “dance” along in my seat by waving around my pointed toes in the air!
It would be great to restart this tradition now that I’m older (just the Nutcracker part, not the dancing in my seat!)
… matching laser guns with 14 settings for my brother and I..
Christmas in Turkey, in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, did it my own way!!
My favorite memories about Christmas is that we made decorating the tree a real family event, usually on a Sunday night, while listening to Christmas carols and drinking egg nog. But the Nutcraker was also a big part of my childhood because as a dancer, I was involved in the production every season. Over the years I danced in almost every role, as a rat (land of mice), snow, Spanish dance, flower waltz, and the Chinese dance. I’ve never seen it before from the other side of the stage and would absolutely love to go!
A special Christmas memory – when i went to my parent’s work party back in the 4th grade the “santa” there gave me a cotton candy machine, i knew it was from my parents but it was the best present ever!
I still remember waiting and waiting by the window for the snow to pile up one year and sprinting outside with my sister and cousins all bundled up when it was up to my thighs– I believe I was about 8 years old back then, so it wasn’t actually THAT deep. 😛 We ended up building two (of the best) forts and had the longest snowball fight I’d ever have. Miss those days!
My favorite Christmas memory was spending Christmas eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing days with 5 other families in one house because it snowed too hard for people to go home.
Christmas in Taiwan: I made crepes for my friends on Christmas Eve, then woke up early Christmas morning and I had a blue sky for my first time living there.
I love this ballet because one of my best xmas memories was when my Aunt took me to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform it. Her friend was a wardrobe mistress and we got wonderful seats! My Mom curled my hair and I wore a special scratchy, lacy xmas dress. Even though it was years ago, I can still remember the excitement of watching this ballet!
My daughter was 4 when she decided on that Christmas morning that we should all reenact the Nativity, she playing the part of Mary, my wife of Joseph (??), and me the, ahem, ass. My daughter is now 11 and would love to go to see this! We’ve never been!
I danced in the nutcracker when I was 12 and was so excited to be in the show as a soldier My uncle flew in for Christmas and came in and at the end of the show when we all came out for the bow I heard a big cheer from the audience. I knew it was my uncle. I was so happy I got a cheer as loud as Clara! Afterwards he told me he knew I was coming out on stage before I got there because he saw my big feet sticking out behind the curtain… not something a budding ballerina wants to hear! It was a great Christmas and I would love to watch ‘real’ dancers show me how it’s really done! 🙂
The Nutcracker is huge in Toronto!
I still remember waiting and waiting by the window for the snow to pile up one year and sprinting outside with my sister and cousins all bundled up when it was up to my thighs– I believe I was about 8 years old back then, so it wasn’t actually THAT deep. 😛 We ended up building two (of the best) forts and had the longest snowball fight I’d ever have. Miss those days!
My first Christmas married; Christmas morning we went to a service at St.Marks on UBC campus, then went for a walk in Kits, then went out for breakfast. Since then its been in-laws and kids — all fun times, but nothing can beat that first Christmas, just the two of us.
Waking up Christmas morning to red felt (from Santa’s suit of course!) stuck on the fireplace grate and carrots thrown around in the yard from the reindeer. I’m pretty sure I dragged my mom out of bed really fast that year 🙂
The Christmas before my mother died I remember watching a televised performance of the Nutcracker with her and my sisters before dinner on Christmas Day. I miss Christmases like those.
The Goh Ballet apparently has lovely performances…
I come from a big Italian family and, every christmas eve we would all head to my Nonno and Nonna’s for a fantastic italian seafood feast! So much good food and good company. 🙂
my best friend who moved to the states came to spend christmas in vancouver with me for a week
On of my oldest memories of Christmas was as a small child on a farm in Manitoba. My brother and I dragged our Dad to the farthest end of our farm to find the biggest, bestest Christmas tree ever. He cut it down and then dragged it all the way home. It was so tall he had to cut a foot off of it to fit in our living room. I can’t remember a single gift that year but I remember that tree and most of all, the adventure of finding it and bringing it to the house.
Just wanted to share another memory that is blended over many years of my kids Christmas concerts. My daughter played Mary one year but nothing says Christmas like a boy dressed up as a shepherd in a striped bathrobe with a tea towel on his head!!!! Am I right ladies?
Even if I have a exam the next day @ 8am I’m still going if i do win 😀
The best Christmases I remember was when all my kids came home and we just got to spend 2 weeks together.
My first Christmas in Canada and it snowed. It was magical.
Skiing on Christmas day with my kids.
There was a snow storm around Christmas last year, after volunteering at a rec center, I borrowed the kitchen oven to bake 10 batches of cookies I had bought earlier from my own fundraising (for a school team). After separating the cookies into brown bags, my boyfriend helped me load all of them into the car. We drove through the snow and hit all of the areas near Chinatown, Hastings, Downtown, Broadway and handed out cookies to homeless person we saw. The smile on their faces and the gratitude was enough to make us feel blessed with the joy of Christmas season.
Skating on a frozen lake with my daughter.
My best memory would have to be playing chess with my late father on Christmas day.
First time i skied on Whistler, christmas eve 4 years ago
Fave eh? Probably my dad making the once a year fire in our fireplace on Christmas day. It sucked the heat out of the rest of the house, but we didn’t care!
Please enter me to win two tickets. Thank you.
Eve
My favourite christmas tradition is to take my family to watch local musicals put on by the Arts Club or the Vancouver Playhouse. We’ve been going for 8 years now! My family largely don’t go to theatre, and as a immigrant family, my parents sometimes have trouble understanding the plot of the show. However, I always get tickets for our family and explain what the show is about and my family always enjoys them. Its my favourite part of the holidays, watching theatre together.
Jessica
One of my favorite Christmas memories was spent in northern BC – there was so much snow one year that we could not leave the house for 4 days! The whole family just staying inside, drinking egg nogg, playing games, and having a great time.
Moment Memory: Tobaganning. But I remember the excitement when I got my very first REAl camera. 🙂
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would love it!!!!!
I moved to Canada because my little brother is here. When we were younger, our Mum would always take us to see a show or musical. Cyrus was aged between 5 and 9 at the time. We took him to see Phantom of the Opera, Cats and the Nutcracker. I have never seen such a sense of wonder and engagement on such a little face. He was truly transferred to another world when watching these. He still remembers those shows and it’s going to be a tradition that continues for his children as well.
I have just started adult ballet classes at Goh. I love it! Did ballet for 12 years, and love being back in that environment of floor to ceiling length mirrors and classical pianists.
Ordering Chinese food for Christmas Eve. It’s a tradition. Then making a German dinner on Christmas day. How very Canadian.
ever since i was a little girl, my dad and mom used to take me to see the nutcracker every year.
i remember my parents dressing me up for the show, a pink dress with a silk bow in the back, matching pink tights and black shiny shoes that i always thought made me look like a ballerina. i remember being so excited, waiting to sit down in the queen elizabeth theatre, with all these adults towering over me.
it didn’t matter that i knew the story of the nutcracker like the back of my hand, every single time I went, it was so exciting to see all the colourful outfits and dream about being Clara!
over the years, we stopped going – partly because I’ve been so busy in school and my mom is always working. now that things have slowed down, i’d like my parents to go back and watch the play, even if its just the two of them and reminisce of spending all that time together with the family during the holidays!
last year when we had a huge family reunion and a big feast on christmas eve
spending decemeber in China with my grandparents
Every year my sister always gets me a great gift. My favorite year was when she got me a Tiffany charm bracelet and Angel perfume. She has never been to the ballet but is dying to go. I think this would be a great gift for her!
coming downstairs while i look through my stocking, and bringing the stocking for my dog down while he pushes his head into it and tried to get at the dog treats inside
My favorite Christmas memory is Dec 2002. My niece was born just before Christmas. I bought her a little mini fur jacket that didn’t fit at the time and that she would have to wait a year to grow into but it was so fun to shop for someone so small. I have never been to the ballet and would love to go!
My favourite Christmas memories are from when our entire family used to get together at my grandmother’s house. My cousins and I would play all day long, eagerly awaiting the opening of presents.
I’ve never seen The Nutcracker live and would love to see it!
my favourite christmas memory was watching the sound of music with the whole family for the first time (that i remember!) when i was 8. since then, we’ve watched it together every year on christmas eve.
My favorite Christmas memory was just last year when my four girls watched the snow fall on Christmas morning and felt the magic and wonder of the season. The didn’t care about the gifts, they just wanted to sing carols, decorate the gingerbread house and play outside. So special!
Holding my infant daughter in my arms in church on her first Christmas, singing Silent Night by candlelight. Magic.
And I would love to bring my daughter to see the Nutcracker. Thank you!
I’ve also never seen it; well I’ve seen it on TV, but never live.
My favorite Christmas memory is when my sister and I were very little and sat with each other by the tree drinking hot chocolate and eating oranges. It was a happy time for my family and I miss them.
Best Christmas memory: When I was 4 years old, we lived in poverty in the Philippines. A gift, and especially giftS were never expected. My sister and I shared a room with my parents and I woke up Christmas morning with a doll that looked (exactly like me beside my head dressed in pink. Looking down at the bottom bunk, my sister also had an doll that looked like her but dressed in stripes and yellow. My mom doesn’t admit to this day that it was her who put it there, actually I don’t really know for sure even up to now, she still says “Santa” or “I don’t know.” We still have our dolls now at 27 yrs old.
My favourite Christmas was a few years ago, my family went down to whistler and it was my first time snowboarding and it was so much fun!
I think the most special Christmas memory for me was the year my parents gave me the rest of the money I needed to pay my tuition for the following semester. This sounds strange, but while in high school, my parents and I had drifted apart; they didn’t approve of the school I had chosen to attned, so moving out and across the country to attend school was more a means to run away rather than begin the next step out in the world. That semester, I spent a lot of time trying on reconciling with my family from afar, reading books on building relationships with your parents and forgiving them for pasts wrongs (and asking them to forgive you too!) and then trying to act on that. I made them both meaningful gifts that year and then under the tree, inside an ornament, was a deposit slip for the money I needed for school. It showed, for the first time, that they were supporting my decision. Our relationship has only grown stronger since that time and now coming home for Christmas is one of my favourite parts of the year.
it’s been years since i’ve seen the nutcracker!
so many christmas memories to choose from – but the best funny one was when my little sister (she was 2/3)showed me (I was 7/8) our presents – my mom was showering and my sister came walking down the hall dragging 2 bright red, puffy sleeping bags behind her.
Coming down the stairs with my brothers and sisters on Xmas morning to filled stockings
This year my kids did the most amazing thing – I was out at a meeting late one afternoon, and when I returned home my two girls (8 and 5) had begged their dad to set up the tree so they could decorate it as a surprise for me! That’s definitely one of my favorite Christmas moments now. And my 5 yr old has been in ballet for a couple of years now, and would be in supreme awe of the Nutcracker if we won!
my most special christmas memory is the year my little sister was born. She was born on Dec 21, and brought home from the hospital on Christmas Day. I was so excited! We are 10 years apart, so I had a pretty big hand in helping out with her when she was little, and finally now we are both adults, and although we are still 10 years apart in age, the gap doesn’t seem as big anymore. I’d love to take her to see the Nutcracker this Christmas!
Wow. That would be great.
I love going to the ballet.
My Granny used to take me to the nutcracker 🙂 Last year’s crab feast with my parents, all tucked up in front of the wood stove, with piles of snow outside is going to be a favourite Christmas memory.
Every Christmas is full of new things when you are lucky enough to have a 5 year old daughter. The best part of last year was when she saw the tracks in the snow that Santa’s sleigh had left behind and Santa’s boot prints all the way up to the door (no chimney 😉 ) It was awesome, not just because of her amazed expression, but because I knew that we were blessed because we weren’t alone this Christmas…and that our little family now had a step-dad who was just as excited as I am about making Christmas memories.
My favourite memory/tradition is every Christmas eve we have a big dinner with my immediate family, we get new pyjamas from my parents and watch It’s A Wonderful Life.
Too many great memories to choose from. Two that stand out:
Sitting at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning with my brothers every year, waiting for the “all clear that Santa was gone” from our parents. The wait was agonizing!
And then the first Christmas with my husband, as we combined all our favourite traditions and made some new ones as well 🙂
Getting a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed sled under the tree! Amazing!
Best Christmas Memory:
Spending a snowy Christmas eve with my family, to have my dear grandmother travel all the way to see us. She arrived at our front door, her hat covered in snow, toting fresh baked goods. It is one of my favorite memories of Christmas.
The best christmas memories I have are dancing in the nutcracker as a student. I was a mouse, a party guest, a bon bon, a candy cane… for about 11 years! The music is wonderful.
I have danced in two versions of the nutcracker over the past ten years. Royal City Youth Ballet and Ballet BC. It is an amazing experience to be dancing onstage every winter. I would love to be able to experience the magic of seeing another company perform this timeless classic!
When I was 7 my dad took me to a hockey game & my sister and mom went to see The Nutcracker. I was a bit of a tom-boy 🙂 but I loved the time alone with my dad, just as my sister loved her experience with my mom. Now I have a 7 year old girley-girl, who I would love to take to the Nutcracker! I’m crossing my fingers. I checked out the tickets, but unfortunately they are just too expensive!
Fav memory is at grandmas house in cranbrook bc eating jello fruit cake.
This looks like an amazing show.
My favourite Christmas memory is stomping through the snow of Victoria during the big christmas snowfall of ’96. It was one of our first family vacations, and my parents wanted to get away from the rain in Prince Rupert. At 9 years of age, it was so magical!
Hmmm… I think I’m making my favourite Christmas memory this year. After 10 years of marriage, I’ve finally managed to put my foot down hard enough to make my sister in law realize it’s not just about what she wants. We’re getting a (real) tree tomorrow (the place you got yours is gone now! 🙁 ) and I bought decorations today. Tree up, decorated and gorgeous, and then the family (both the one I married into and the ones I have chosen as my family) will be here for Christmas dinner. Big giant turkey with allllll the fixings. (Or, a Roast Beastie with yorkshires and alllllll the trimmings there too). 😀
Watching HOME ALONE as a kid and being BY MYSELF!
*smacks hands to cheeks* AAAARRRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!
My parents went to grad school in the U.S. where they were privileged to share the festive holiday spirit with their home stay families. We were one of the very few families in the early 90’s to have a Christmas tree set up in our family room back in Asia. Together we would make Christmas decorations and stuff stockings weeks before Christmas. I genuinely believed in Santa when I was a little kid. I would go to bed with the hope of getting the presents I had wished for all year long, and when I woke in the morning they would be there for me along with a card from Santa! Of course my parents did all that for me. Now that I am in Canada where Christmas is widely celebrated I get to appreciate even more the effort my parents put into making Christmas part of my childhood memories.
Seeing the ocean with my parents for the first time, in New Brunswick, on a frosty Christmas morning !
My most special Christmas memorie is my first Chritmans as a mother in 2006, whith my daugther in my arms. A baby is the best gift ever.
I don’t celebrate Christmas myself, but I adore the lights and sounds and energy of the whole Christmas season, and I love watching the Nutcracker on tv 🙂
My best Christmas Memory – cooking my first Christmas Dinner for my family two years ago. A crazy day, but we ended up with a feast and lots of great family memories. It’s now tradition.
Last Christmas:
My three-year-old son was hospitalized (exactly one year ago this week) for acute pneumonia and asthma… He (and we, with little sleep!) spent the week before Christmas, first at Children’s Hospital, then at Lions Gate.
All the pressures of that week disappeared: we cancelled all our social engagements, scrapped the last-minute shopping, and just put all our energy into what was most important – our family.
Our son, Leo, worried every day that Santa would not know how to find him, in the hospital… Two teenaged angel girls from Bowen Island distracted him one day by bringing him (and other children in the hospital) a Build-a-Bear, bought with money they saved throughout the year. Oh, he was so happy that day!
My poor little boy’s body was not absorbing oxygen properly; especially at night, he would drop into the danger zone. On Dec. 22, he had a particularly rough night, so we began planning Christmas Day at the hospital.
But a circle of virtual, interconnected prayers and hopes from friends near and far intervened, and – after a miraculously healed night on Dec. 23 – our son was released from hospital on Christmas Eve to the snow-covered, deeply grateful arms of his family.
What a Christmas it was!
When I was 15, my parents took us from freezing (-40) Edmonton to Maui for a month. It was our first family vacation, and it was wonderful.
taking my 6 year old daughter to the Nutcracker her first year of ballet lessons.
My special Christmas memory is flying to Poland to visit my grandparents last year- as a surprise! Nothing beats the hugs I got from them then.
The best Christmas ever as a child – which could quite possibly never be topped – was when I was about 7 years old.
My Dad had just acquired his very first video camera (the goliath-type that sat on top of one’s shoulder)and proceeded to record every seasonal happening that took place during that holiday. I remember his attempts at making me ‘disappear’ on camera and suddenly reappear a second later! Amazing!
I remember my parents had arranged for an old friend to dress up as Santa and visit me and all my cousins at the house, and I recall all of us running outside after him to watch him leave only to discover he had magically disappeared! Still to this day I have no idea how this feat was accomplished.
I remember speaking to Old Claus and his wife by way of CB Radio (services provided by relatives living on the Sunshine Coast);
I remember GIANT, sprayed-white Christmas trees inside my Catholic church at Mass on Christmas Eve and peeking at the life-sized ceramic Baby Jesus as he nestled in his crib. I remember waking up Christmas morning to see reindeer tracks in the snow placed strategically on the front lawn in front of my window. All of it was MAGIC!
What I wouldn’t give for that magic again as an adult!
Sorry, but I hate the Nutcracker. My wife works the shows every year and it’s so stressful on her. I know it’s a moneymaker for a ballet company but for the people putting on (and organizing) the show it’s the 120th time they’ve had to do it.
Personally, I would go nuts if I heard the theme everyday on a piano down the hall. Seriously, as a piano player, I would go nuts. And then come home to the nutcracker theme on TV commercials.
But I’m relived that the world is evened out by good memories of those here and others. I’m my wife will get through this Nutcracker season sane. I bought her a spa day in January to look forward to.
Going to see the Nutcracker with my mom when I was a little girl. I still remember how special it was to get dressed up and head downtown to the Queen E theatre with her. I would love to take my daughter who is almost 8 and make special memories for her.
I would love the opp to take my daughter to this this year. We don’t have a lot of xmas traditions as we are fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants folk; however her fave tradition is opening one gift from me xmas eve. And every year the gift is some crazy pyjamas. And my fave tradition is every year I try to convince her that this year the gift is, in fact, NOT pyjamas as she already has about 4 million pairs of pyjamas. But it always is pyjamas.
A good nutcracker memory: I remember going to see the Nutcracker in London with my grandma the Christmas I was 7. In my fancy velvet dress (like only grandmas buy), trying not to slip off the fancy velvet seats, looking through the opera glasses (!!!) that were on each chair back, and nibbling my little cup of icecream at intermission I felt pretty deluxe.
Memories of pressing my sister and I pressing our faces against the glass watching my dad freeze outside while making a skating rink for us in the backyard. Cozying up by the fireplace with cookies that we were supposed to leave for Santa. Eating entire tins of cranberry sauce at Xmas dinner.
Going over to my parents and having dinner with all the family and extended family. Six children laughing and playing together.
My most special Christmas memory was driving up to Minneapolis from Winnipeg, Mb to find my aunt. I called her up and said, you my aunt and I am your niece and I would like to meet you. I spent then next few days with her getting to know her.
Many years ago, my Mom took my daughter and I to The Nutcracker and we LOVED it!! Since then, my Mom has passed on, my daughter has married and they have a beautiful little boy. My daughter and I discussed how nice it would be to see The Nutcracker again…we miss our Mom/Grandma and Christmas is no better time to love and remember those we love. Looking forward to a beautiful Christmas!
my most treasured Christmas memories were when my cousins and I would decorate the Christmas tree at my oma and opa`s home with christmas music playing. Then we would all get in our matching pajamas that my oma made us every Christmas.