Christmas Show

The boys' school has a Christmas pageant every year.  Traditionally, the show features the children in every other grade, thus giving each family a year off in between attending the festivities.  Unfortunately for our family, the every other grade thing didn't really work out and the boys were staggered in years that would require our attendance and participation every year.

I was not thrilled.  Chris was not thrilled.  Yes, I realize this makes us sound a bit like a Grinch.  I know.  But for as much as we adore the boys' school, we accept it has come with a trade off.  And that trade off is a lack of a true music program.  They have a music teacher, but well, he doesn't do all that much.  He is fairly awful.  The Christmas pageant for us has become a symbol of all that awful-ness, a thrown together, dismal failure of a program that I have found, frankly embarrassing.  So much so, that I had stopped inviting family members to attend.

It is that bad.

I am on the school board for the boys' school and I have spent much time bemoaning the music program.  It is my mantra, but while we are making some progress, we aren't quite there yet.

But this year, things changed a bit for the annual Christmas show.  Another teacher at the school decided to actually work on the pageant.  She created skits.  She added narrators.  She gave us music that was actually our children singing instead of them mouthing along to a pre-recorded cd featuring other children's voices.

It was like a real live school Christmas pageant.  Really!

She also eliminated the every other grade tradition and put all grades in the show.  We had hope and even invited family members to come watch.

We watched our boys perform with pride.  Brennan was a narrator for his skit and a horse.  Griffin was Joseph.  And Aidan had quite a part as Mr. Willoughby in the skit entitled Mr. Willoughby's Christmas.

It was beyond adorable.  Just so cute.  The boys and their schoolmates did a fantastic job.

But my favorite part of the whole show, by far, was the last song song by the entire school.  The kids were seated in the first four or five rows of the audience.  As the show came to a close, they turned around and sang, with great gusto, "Go in Peace."

It was a moment of sweetness and reflection for me, hearing all the childlike voices rising together to sing something so simple, but profound.  It was a reminder of how blessed we all are, to be there in that gym at that moment, to listen to our children sing.