CHRISTMAS PROGRAM FROM HELL

Last night was our children's Christmas program. They were very excited (I think) about performing for the parents. Our kids were learning in modulars until their school was built, so this is the first Christmas program in the new school, in the new gym with their new music teacher. Some observations:

1. An email came to us two days before the event. All children had to be dressed a certain way with no jeans, holiday colors, shirts tucked in to pants with a belt, blah blah blah. That's all fine and dandy to most parents. They probably planned on dressing up their little ones anyway. What about the parents who couldn't afford to buy little Johnny a new outfit?

2. Correct me if my memory serves me wrong, but don't Christmas programs usually get divided in to two nights? One night for the K-third, another for the 4-6. We were there for what seemed like hours. The gymnasium was so crowded that people were standing on the sides of the gym and sitting on the floor.

3. There were no risers for the kids to sing on. The classes all took turns going on stage. It didn't look good. Call me old-fashion, but I like when the kids are on risers (so you can see your kid that's in the back row) while a select few perform something on stage during the song. The entire 2nd grade performance, I couldn't see Christian at all.

4. You can tell that the music teacher spent a lot of time with the kids on this performance. The poor woman needs to learn how to play the piano though. Good God! She fumbled through each song, hitting wrong notes, starting the songs over again. I felt bad for her. Aren't music teachers supposed to know a thing or two about playing the piano? If not, couldn't she have asked one of her students that take piano lessons to play the songs for her?

5. Because the kids had to sit in the back of the gym until it was their time to perform, the didn't get to see the program. So when we got home, Papa set it up on the t.v. and I had to watch it AGAIN. Now that's just torture.

6. It's hilarious to see the differences in the kids and how they react to the Christmas singing.

Tori: Completely animated. Singing at the top of her lungs and over-dramatizing her mouth movements. Tori smiled the entire evening.

Christian: Singing happily....but wishing he were somewhere else.

Leroy: You could tell by the look on his face that he was bored as hell and thought this was the stupidest thing that could possibly occur all in one evening. Because his Asperger's medication had worn off by this time of night, he was especially being his quirky Leroy self. Bubby filmed on videotape of Leroy getting right in the face of a little boy standing next to him and then slowly with his pointing finger, touching the other child on his nose. Of course the other child thought he was a freak and smacked his hand away. Leroy feeling bothered with still having to sing..... started picking his nose.

Classic.