I’m just now watching my first Christmas movie of the year (Christmas Vacation), my traditional first movie each year). Between the four movies I own and the 3-4 I’ve added to the DVR in the last month, there’s no way I’m getting through them all, for the second straight year. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.
M.’s Christmas program last night was great. It was exactly the kind of benign train wreck a kid’s Christmas event should be. All the kids in her school, from the three year olds to kindergardeners were included. The entire school sang a few songs, and then each class had their own set of songs or speeches. The kindergardeners got to dress like Mary, Joseph, etc. and had speaking parts. M.’s class just got to sing some songs. It was HI-larious (as Ross Perot would say) to watch the kids. The three year olds were just kind of sitting, looking around, and then when their teachers told them it was time to sing “Silent Night,” for example, they would jump up and get into character. M.’s class sang a song about loving Jesus, told a “story” about what happened one night in Bethlehem, and then had a fun little calypso number about Jesus complete with dance moves. The Bethlehem story went something like this:
“One night in Bethlehem, sheep ate grass, shepherds watched, angels prayed, Mary loved, Jesus slept, and Joseph helped.”
They had little hand movements for each section, so they put their hands together to pray, mimed cradling a baby for Mary, and pretended to be hammering for Joseph. For the sheep, they acted like they were eating something especially chewy. M. had been doing that part at home for weeks, to her great amusement, and chewed a little extra long in the actual program. She knew she was being silly, because she looked at her aunt, who was recording for us, as she did her extra long chew. (I can’t find my firewire cable to get the video to the computer, so that will have to wait awhile).
The train wreck part came from having that many kids in one place. Kids were constantly wandering off, only to be herded back by their teachers. During the songs, some kids would just stand there, others would be a few beats ahead or behind where they needed to be. And one kid was especially loud. It was impossible not to laugh at them.
M. sat by a boy who may be turning into a special friend. As on the day when her aunt went in and ate lunch with her, she kept hanging out with the Japanese kid. What’s funny is the aunt who was there that day, and was videoing last night, tends to lean towards ethnic looking boys. Apparently M. is taking after her aunt. I’m pretty sure something is up, because afterwards, the kid’s dad made sure he got pictures of his son with M.. The family has only been in the States a few months, so I’m hopeful that the young man hasn’t been corrupted by our over-sexed American culture and doesn’t push things too far, too fast.
M. was very excited and proud of her performance. She got to show her grandparents her classroom and got one more Christmas hug from her teacher. And she and C. both got cookies, which they were pretty pleased about.