More Kind Words about My Winter Festivals Show

I know, I know. I started blogging in 2006 (12 years ago!). But then stopped for almost 2 full years. Now, suddenly, I'm back at it, and I'm posting like every other day. But when you are self-employed life is like a roller coaster when it comes to time and money. Some months I'm so busy I can't think, and other months I don't have enough work to buy a cup of coffee.

So, I've decided to use my free time to get back into writing more. More blogging, I'm also going to do more video, since that seems to be a popular medium. And this blog post will be using both. Here's a short clip of a teacher who saw the very last Texas school assembly show I did this year. It was a show I do called "Arctic Express" and it's about all the holidays people celebrate during the winter time.

For more videos, testimonials, funny clips of my shows, etc. be sure to visit my YouTube channel.

Kind Words about "Arctic Express" (my show about winter festivals)

Because of the way the holidays fell this year, the last day of school assembly shows for me was just 2 days before Christmas Eve. So our family was feeling a little rushed to get everything settled, bought, wrapped, etc. before our scheduled trips to see all the family.

Now, here I am, AFTER Christmas and things have settled down a little bit, so I had time to edit and post a few videos of some things clients this year had to say about my show, The Arctic Express. The show is a multicultural exploration of all the winter holidays people celebrate around the world.

Kids Say the Funniest Things!

Texas author Julian Franklin performing as a train engineer.

One of the educational school assemblies I do is a show about all the winter festivals the people celebrate around the world: Diwali, Thanksgiving, Ramadan (not always in the winter but I include it), Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, New Year and, of course, Christmas.

At one point in the show I talk about Chris VanAllsburg's book, The Polar Express. I say, "The boy knows he can have any gift he wants. But all he wants...is a bell."

A girl on the second row yelps out "I know Isabel!"

I've been doing this show for 14 seasons now and I have to admit, this one caught me off guard. It took me until that moment in the NEXT show before I even realized what she was talking about. I totally heard it as it came out of my mouth, and now I can't NOT hear it. But I've been doing this show for so long, it is hard for me to change the script in my head.

What's all the rage about video?

Okay, listen: I'm NOT a Luddite! I'm no technophile, but I'm not a technophobe either. I'm rarely "cutting edge" or "new introducer," but I'm usually in front of the 50% curve...usually.

Or not.

Anyway, the point is that I haven't written a blog entry is almost TWO YEARS! Do you know what 2 years is? It's 14 dog years! My dog could almost be driving a car by now! My head hurts.

So people always call the office phone (next blog entry about how we're about to cut the land line once and for all) to ask questions about which of my fifteen educational school assembly shows would be best for their Texas author visit. While I love talking to my clients, I'm usually out performing assembly programs and can't answer the phone. Even when my wife is at home answering the phone and booking summer library shows or school author visits she doesn't always have the time to engage in a lengthy discussion about every single show I do.

We have a teenage daughter living at home! And your school districts are requiring ever more paperwork from us, so, please, cut us some slack, okay? I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud?

Anyway, I finally joined the 21st century and actually recorded and uploaded some YouTube videos describing my various shows. I'll be blogging (I hope) more frequently and will include links to descriptions of all the shows I do. So you can hear it straight from this horse's mouth (most folks accuse me of talking out of my...never mind, but it IS related to a horse).