Before I get started I just want to point out that OMG it’s almost Christmas, and I am weeks behind on the blog… Let’s see what I can get done before the year ends!

A few weeks ago, my friend Karin found tickets to The Little Mermaid live show on December 9 at a theater super close to our house (which ironically I have never been to). She and her cutie pie daughter Sky came up from OC to watch, and it was a blast!

First of all, I’m constantly amazed by how children can be so observant and yet still be so generous with their assessment of princesses (who are clearly NOT the “real” princesses). Other than a reddish wig, our Ariel didn’t look much like the movie (yes, I know it was animated), but she had a LOVELY voice. And of course for any kid who has seen the movie, there was no mistaking “which one” on stage was Ariel, so I guess it doesn’t really matter how real she was, right? She was Ariel.

There were other liberties they clearly had to take with the live show (not easy to pull off an open ocean battle with a huge sea witch on a local stage), but in general I don’t think the kids cared much as long as the gist of the story was there – and the songs were intact. As an adult who loves The Little Mermaid trying to watch it through the eyes of children (and there were a LOT of children there), it was credible enough. And honestly, there’s nothing like some live singing to warm up a room, if you ask me.

The small theater was in fact filled with families, and to his credit the stage manager did a great job of tactfully, in a kid-friendly way, letting everyone know that this wasn’t a sing-along (and that people had paid to hear the actors sing). What I thought would be a 1.5 hour show (since that’s how long the movie is) turned out to be almost 3 hours, but all the kids did great, even though Zoe really really wanted to stand up and dance, and Ella insisted on bringing her baby, who needed a snack during intermission:

I can’t help but be concerned AND optimistic about her future as a mother…

But the real point of this post is that AFTER the show, the characters came out to meet the audience, and you would have thought our kids were meeting celebrities (were they?):

Yes, that’s a baby hanging upside down from Ella’s hands, but what would YOU do if you got a chance to meet a REAL PRINCE?!