Our Premier Christmas Program

Emma had her first Christmas program Tuesday night. The three preschool classes performed together in front of JCPenneys at the mall. I found out about it the morning of, so I had to run to Wal-Mart during lunch and pick up a red shirt. I was excited. It’s a preview of coming attractions. Kindergarten is only a one and a half school year’s away.

At dinner before the performance, Emma kept mentioning that she had to be really careful not to slip. This should have been my first indication that this wasn’t going to go necessarily as I had hoped. She was happy to be there, until she had to get on the stage. We had two choices, we could let her not go up there with the kids or we could make her go on stage. We actually found somewhat of a happy medium – well really more on the forcing side of medium. Ms. M, one of our favorite teachers, was sitting on the bleachers with her daughter. She took Emma from me and kept her on her lap. By the time Lexie arrived, she was okay enough to calm Lexie down. She sat on Ms. M’s other knee.

Since she’d calmed down, I sat down in the front of the crowd with Allison. Danny stood in the back. Once the music started, I couldn’t wait to watch her perform. The problem is that I couldn’t see her. She wouldn't stand up. I recorded her lack of participation for posterity. The arrow indicates where Emma would have appeared if she were standing.


After a while, if I craned my neck, I could see Emma and Lexie swaying slightly. I’m not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but their lips seemed to be moving. Lexie’s arm was around Emma’s shoulder. It made me smile. I can see them 20 years from now (I hope) doing the same thing at an Irish pub.

Intermittently, Lexie would pull out her lip gloss and Emma her lip balm and they would freshen up. I about died.

"Excuse me, but all this singing is ruining my makeup. We’re taking a break to powder our noses."

All of the other kids are belting out the songs and doing the moves they must have practiced over and over at school. Since they were sort of singing, I had high hopes that the girls would eventually stand up and join in. I did get my wish. At first Emma would stand up and sit down. Finally, when she stood up for good, she huddled in her corner with her buddies ~ gossiping and applying lip balm, paying no attention to the program under way.

What a hoot! I can tell you now that unless she’s a cheerleader, Emma will not be one of those students who attend sporting events to watch the game. She will be roaming around with her friends, being careful to ensure that she looks her very best whenever XYZ (hopefully Charlie) walks by. As scared as I probably should be about this, it makes me happy. I remember those times very fondly. I hope that Emma will, too.