The Christmas Program and the Drama of the Bells

This morning the kids performed their Christmas songs for all the parents at our CBS Bible study. They have been practicing the songs for the last several weeks, and I was so excited to see them in their first little performance. My little Addi is always a performer around the house, but performing for the general public is an entirely different story. She does not like to put on a show for others. (However, she always has a flare for the dramatic!) She informed me this morning that she didn't think that she could go to CBS and sing for the parents because she was sick. Needless to say, she is not sick. I assured her that she would do great and told her not to worry about it.

As the kids were walking up to the stage, she stopped to hug me, and I was concerned for a minute that she was not going to let go. But, again I assured her that she was going to do great. And she did do great, wonderfully, in fact...until the bell incident. For the first few songs, she was up there doing the motions and singing the words and even seemed to be enjoying herself. She would smile and wave at us and keep going. Then, the time came for the grand finale of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." The teachers passed bells out to the kids and they were supposed to ring the bells as they sang. Well, Addi got skipped and did not receive her bells, and I knew exactly what was going to happen. I could see the whole thing unfold before it ever did.

I was sitting on the floor in the front trying to record the performance, and as soon as I realized that she did not have bells, I knew I had to take action. I saw her face fall and that she was trying to be brave at first and shake some non-existent bells. But, I knew it wouldn't last long. I frantically started crawling across the floor to reach one of the teachers who was holding some bells. (The top of my foot is literally now raw from the rug burn I received as a result of the frantic crawling.) I grabbed the bells and tried to reach them up to Addi on the stage...but I was too late. Before I could get to her, she had already lost it - face covered in her hands, crying inconsolably, devastated and embarassed that she did not have the necessary prop for the song. To make matters worse, another human being outside of Jay or myself tried to console her, at which point the crying turned to a full-on scream. So much for wishing everyone a merry Christmas!

The culmination of the nerves, the embarassment, the lack of bells that she was supposed to be ringing, and the fact that her halo had also just fallen off her head, was just too much to handle for my little 4-year-old angel, with a flare for the dramatic. Here she is trying to be brave and shake her pretend bells. She's in the second row in the black dress. When the camera stops is when I had assessed the situation and had sprung into action. If only I could have crawled a little faster.

And here, in happier times... (The little girl and little boy in front have taken the teacher's instructions to use loud voices very seriously. The little girl is the daughter of our very close friends, and she is every bit as funny in person as she is on stage. She also apparently has a flare for the dramtic!)

And, I'm adding one more just so that I can try to get one on here that shows Jake as well. He's in the back in the black shirt. I moved around a couple of times trying to get him in the video, but he always seemed to be blocked. The real entertainment in this one is Audrey (the little girl in the red).

I'm sure that the most entertaining video, however, is the one that all the other parents now have in which a grown woman is crawling across the floor from one side of the stage to the other, providing a great butt shot for all those cameras, in an effort to obtain bells and then fling them up to her now inconsolable child. I'm hoping that those videos won't make it onto to any blogs!