Oh Holy Night

Well, this was the first Christmas concert the kids have had and we were very excited. Madeline had been at a Jewish school for the previous 3 years and so we have been to three Hanukkah concerts, but no Christmas ones. I have to say that I did miss the jelly donuts after the Hanukkah concert (and just found out why they have jelly donuts for Hanukkah), but enjoyed knowing more about what was going on. Since we are not Jewish I was always a little unsure of when to do, say, and eat what and why exactly we were doing it. Of course, I could have learned or asked and I always meant to (even bought a book online, just never got around to reading it) so I was always a little in the dark about the holidays and customs.

Madeline was assigned the role of 1st sheep (the sheep in the manger with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus). She was a little upset because she had wanted to be Mary, but she said that her friend Tamara asked first, so got to be the sheep in the manger, next to Mary. Jack was an angel.

The above picture is the manger, Madeline is the little girl on the left in white. We didn't get any pictures of her close up because they dressed them in the classroom and then stripped the costumes off the kids as soon as they got off stage. I was sad because she was such a cute little sheep and I would have like more pictures :(.

Jack did fine as an angel. I had to go up on stage with him and Heath was videotaping it so we did not get any pictures of him on stage. Of course we could upload the video, if only we knew how! Anyway, the angels were supposed to all stay to the left of the manager on a little blanket. Well, not Jack! As soon as he saw Madeline in the manger her bolted for her, yelling "sissy, sissy, sissy," until I just finally let him stay. It wasn't worth the battle up on stage in front of the whole school.

After his part was done, Jack and I sat down in the first row next to Heath to finish watching the concert. But nooooo, he was not happy to watch Madeline, he wanted to be with her. So he got up and tried to climb the platform of the stage to be with her. He almost made it, then a teacher grabbed him and spoiled his fun. Actually, we are not sure who she was, she was sitting with the kids, so we assumed she was a teacher. However, after the concert they had cookies for the kids and we saw her pulling zippy bags out of her purse and filling them with cookies, so maybe she was just some random woman who likes cookies and Christmas concerts!

Madeline was so excited for the cookies, as was Jack! A perfect end to the play!