circus | Gail B. Hyatt

Last November PBS began airing a documentary series called Circus. (Check it out!) I fell in love with it as soon as I watched the trailer. After I finished the six hours, I immediately looked to see if the Big Apple Circus would be coming ANYwhere in the Southeast. I would love nothing more than to take the grandkids to see it. But no such luck. Apparently The Big Apple Circus doesn’t venture this far south.

So I began to search for another circus that would be coming our area and realized that I would have to settle for the next best thing, The Greatest Show on Earth.

Fortunately for Michael and me, Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey have several different shows traveling around the country simultaneously. This would allow us to go to the circus on two different weekends and see two different shows. First we took Ellie and Libby to the “Fundrum” circus in Nashville, and the following Saturday we took Fionn and Felicity to the “Fully Charged” show in Birmingham. Both were fabulous.

I’m going to share a few pictures with you and hopefully inspire you to take the time to do something really special with your kids, your grandkids, nieces or nephews, neighbor or any child you can think of. Childhood passes much too quickly and fun memories need to be a part it.

That’s Libby. She’s dancing with one of the performers during the pre-show. Make sure to go to the pre-show if you’re going to a Ringling Bros. circus.

The pre-show was so much fun. They brought out this big beautiful elephant …

… who painted a picture with it’s trunk. They had a drawing for the picture.

The show began with a grand parade led by the Ringmaster who, by the way, had an incredible singing voice.

I wasn’t expecting so many clowns, but the show had hot-and-cold-running clowns. They were hilarious.

There’s something about seeing these massive animals, all lined up, sitting on their behinds. You just gotta smile.

And the fact that they can all stand up on their hind legs and lean on each other like dominos was incredible.
How can something so huge look so graceful? I think the elephants are my favorite.

Notice this woman is in red heels!

The strength and control of the performers is absolutely mind-boggling.

Intermission was all about the hotdogs. (That’s Fionn)
I hadn’t had a hotdog in probably five years. I have to say, it was worth the wait. Delish! I’m good for another five years, though!

And, when you go to the circus you MUST get cotton candy.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about candy and sugar, or how much it costs ($12.00!), a circus is not complete without cotton candy.

Intermission’s over. Back to the circus and more laughs.

The tight-rope performers were captivating. I think Ellie held her breath through the entire act.

There are a lot of animals in a circus, but I think the Tigers are the most beautiful.

The trainer was wonderful with them. It was obvious that he had a special bond and love for these magnificent cats.

We were sad to see the circus come to a close. The final parade was a fitting end to it all.

So there you have it. I’m so grateful to add another childhood memory to my collection. I’ve decided that I’m not ready to grow up yet. Not quite yet.

Well, Michael and I have joined the circus. Well, almost. For the past two weekends, we’ve been at the circus. The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus to be exact. Here’s the story:

And yes, that’s me.

Ever since I bought a copy of Toby Tyler and showed it to the grandkids, I knew I wanted to take them to a Circus.

Each year when the Circus came to town, I toyed with buying the tickets. But I waited. I waited until they got to THE perfect age.

I wanted them to be old enough to appreciate the talent and skill demonstrated by the performers. And I wanted their experience of the Circus to be one that they would never forget and hold forever dear in their treasure box of memories. This was the year.

Our four oldest grandchildren are now ages 5-9. Perfect! Here they are: Fionn 9, Libby 5, Felicity 7, and Ellie 7.

It helps that they’re so cute because you’d better not
take your eyes off of them for a second.

So I began planning. After some discussion, Mike and I decided that it would be best to go to two separate circuses and take two children at a time.

We really wanted to give them special, undivided attention. Plus, let’s be honest, WE wanted special, undivided attention from THEM—no competition!

Scheduling issues also came into play so we settled on Nashville and Birmingham on the last two Satrudays of January.

(Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey have several different shows that play simultaneously around the country.)

Once we settled on the “when” we had to work out the “how.” We decided that we would give the kids the gift of the Circus for their Christmas presents.

I found a circus-related toy for each of them, and hid a handmade card inside each of the toys. On the outside of the card it said, “Guess What?”

When the card was opened it said, in big red letters, “WE’RE GOING TO THE CIRCUS!”

And inside there was a big, yellow ticket which read, “ADMIT ONE!”

Christmas morning. The kids were thrilled!

This moment alone was worth the whole idea!

Fast forward …

Now, let’s fast forward to January and the start of the Circus Weekends. For the purpose of this post, I’m going to combine the weekends into one. The second weekend was pretty much a repeat performance of the first.

Like I said above, I wanted the kid’s Circus Weekend to be memorable. So I began planning. Here are some of the things I decided to do:

1. We would have the kids come over Friday night to spend the night. But this would be no ordinary spend-the-night.

2. I would greet them at the door, on Friday—Circus theme playing over the speakers. (Listen here.)—in a full clown costume complete w/ giant shoes, balloons and a classic classic clown horn, all the while jumping up and down and chanting:

“We’re going to the Circus! We’re going to the Circus!”

They had NO idea what to say!! Never in all my born days …. Grandmommy?????

(By the way, part of determining the “perfect age” is knowing that they won’t completely roll their eyes and walk off because they’re “too cool.” Fionn, age 9, was on the borderline.)

3. We would read Circus books before bed.