What would you do if you had to make a ‘Princess Moroseness’ smile? Bribe her with gifts of course! And during the Christmas season, what better way than to give her gifts on the traditional ‘12 days of Christmas’?
That’s what Sandhya Ruban, founder and creative head of Eloquens, a storytelling institute, and Andrea Jacob, a fitness specialist, did in their special storytelling session for children, held earlier this week.
Princess Moroseness needed to smile, so the Prince, who is search of a bonus brings her 12 special gifts for the 12 different days of Christmas, ending with a live glass-blowing session with Srinivas Raghavan, a glass technologist, making a glass angel for the Princess.
The storytelling session involved the children, who were mostly eight years and younger and helped them learn. It incorporated the different elements of storytelling — creative movement, dancing, live singing, and the show stopper: glass blowing. The kids hunted for partridges and gold rings, leaped like frogs and swam like geese in an effort to please Princess Moroseness. “We wanted to present something that would involve everybody, not just the kids,” said Ruban.
Indeed, parents also milked cows and danced like Spanish senoritas, in a effort to keep up with their children. “The session is not just simple storytelling, where there is person narrating with kids listening in to it. That just becomes boring. We wanted to show something fun and exciting to the children, and they can learn about Christmas traditions at the same time,” said Jacob.
The live glass blowing session was the most anticipated event, with the kids ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over the different shapes and forms the molten glass took before fusing into a really delicate snow angel.
“We hope the kids learnt something today and had fun in the process,” said Sandhya at the end of the session.
Judging by the smiles on their faces, it looks like they certainly did