concerts, LONG concerts, and more concerts

Why must every organization feel the need to hold a Christmas concert?  It's the busiest month of the year, plus everyone invents all sorts of extra projects that must be done before that magical December 24th deadline.  (for example, my homemade Christmas presents!)

This year, we were treated to two orchestra concerts and one long Christmas sing at the elementary school.

It started out on a Tuesday morning when Emily's orchestra did a concert for the school...
Emily played so well!  She was nervous, but once it was over, she was all smiles.

The morning concert lasted only 40 minutes or so.  Then Michael left to fly out of town to teach a seminar and I got to wrestle the kids during the night concert.  They played more songs and had solos when they performed for the parents.  Emily didn't want to try out for a solo this time, but she was proud to play with a group.

I expected it would be about an hour.  It went on for over 1 1/2 hours!  Joshua couldn't stay in his seat.  Olivia kept jumping on me, and then off.  Miriam couldn't stop poking anyone sitting next to her.  Adam was an angel and sat still the whole time.  The rest of the kids were threatened with near death to be quiet.


Michael flew home in time to attend the Christmas sing during school just two days later.  Each class took a turn singing 2 annoying holiday songs.  Lucky for us, they mixed up the grades, and Miriam's class was last.  We got to see the entire program! (instead of sneaking out after our kids were done.)  I guess you could say it was a good thing the girls were last.  By the time it was their turn, enough parents had left that we could move up closer to the front and see our kids better.

Adam in his coat and reindeer hat.

Emily (middle) singing and trying not to look at us.

Miriam (in green) when she wasn't hiding behind the girl in blue.

What a relief when the concert week ended!