Holiday dance off … ’80s style
Posted December 23rd, 2009 | Filed Under: Blog, San Francisco Chronicle
2009
We’re in the last, frantic throes of holiday craziness around here — the kind of last-minute preparations for parties that make you wish the sweet baby jesus had been conceived the old fashioned way and the entire world still danced around the may pole and offered burnt animals to pantheons of bitchy gods instead of what we have now to celebrate winter solstice: shopping malls.
So this is a short and sweet link to a story I did for the San Francisco Chronicle’s parenting blog, The Poop, on how to survive rainy winter afternoons with the help of the best dance scenes from the 1980s:
While I haven’t yet let her watch the movie — yarns about welders by day and strippers by night can can probably wait until she’s 4 — I have taught her the basic warm up skills I learned from a young Jennifer Beals.
None of the skills involves a bucket of water, a chain and a strip show stage. I’m not coordinated or hairless enough to pull that off. Rather, I stand almost perfectly still and then begin to furiously march in place, shaking my head and imagining I’m wearing a gorgeous gray sweat shirt with a wide open neck line.
I have to admit, enrolling Emmeline in ballet class was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
While I’m sure there will be a wide-eyed post in our near future about the wonders of seeing the holiday season through the eyes of a child, right now I still have to figure out a way to iron a shirt for the ballet after getting high on a metric fuck ton of coffee.
So that said, Good Murlinpeen everyone! And can you believe that santa dress still kind of fits?!
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11 Comments
Awesome!! I know and love all those movies and dance numbers. I especially loved the Footloose one in my day. I used to think Kevin Bacon was just so adorable. Thanks for bringing me back.
How about Thriller?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un3-Hb9wF9s
Maybe too scary for Emme? I’m a little too daring when it comes to what’s potentially nightmare-inducing. (we started to watch Gremlins once, till we got to the microwave scene)
Awesome! I knew and loved all those movies and dances. Especially Footloose. Ren McCormick was my hero.
How about Thriller? Maybe too scary for Emme? I’m a poor judge when it comes to fear inducing media and my kids. (I recently tried to watch Gremlins with them, till we got to the microwave part. Big mistake.)
Thanks for bringing me back!
Except it’s not a dress anymore, it’s a shirt…
She’s growing up just fast enough! Very Merry to you and yours!
A tad short in the arms, but still nice.
Sorry I put up two posts. I didn’t think the first one went through. Take one off if you want. Thanks!
Wow, you just transported me back to a time when I remember doing “neck exercises” to Maniac (move your chin in and out. This is what I did in P.E. in a Nor. Cal. elementary school when I was just a bit older than Emme.) That and “What a Feeling” were my favorites. I must say that I remember “What A Feeling” was so much faster and now it seems like a slow ballad. (Also, Let’s Hear It For the Boy.) Ah, I love being a child of the 80s.
And if you want to show her the thriller dance, show her the version from “13 going on 30″ where Jennifer Garner does it, not a Jacksonesque zombie.
Let’s hear it for the boy! How could I forget that one — thanks! Good call re: thriller, too. You know easily-freaked children well.
How cute. It reminds me of the story of the parents who took a picture of their child in the same bathing suit from birth to adulthood (it was an adult-sized bathing suit).
Hmmm, not so sure it fits but still adorable. Is that BART?
[...] sing and dance a lot around here, and I think these photos prove the child has a horrible, horrible teacher [...]