The Christmas Festivities are ON!

Last week commenced with us attending Jesse first play ever--the nativity play at his school where Jesse got to be Joseph. We wondered if self-consciousness would kick in but it never did. He was so happy and proud to be a part of it and I couldn't believe how non-chalantly he said his line. It wasn't extremely dramatic but it was totally without self-consciousness or any related afflictions, just perfectly delivered. It was great to see him sing all the songs that he had been singing around the house. I thought it was funny when Luci said, "Mommy, is Jesse a pirate?" It was also fun for us to notice that Jesse was playing the air drums, etc. while the kids that had those parts were doing it for real. It was cute to watch him mime front and center on stage.

On Saturday we went to our neighborhood farm for a nativity thing too. Our friends from the Salvation Army organized this fabulous thing, which I gather they do every year. They had nativity related costumes for the children to put on (J declined, and Luci did too, as he was nativitied out and besides, he's off on Saturday). The boy who was the star (he was pre-picked) told everyone to follow him and we all followed as the nativity played out. We visited the 3 wise women near the geese and chickens, King Herod stationed with the pigs, the shepherds with the sheep and then finally the stable where the baby was, with the animals conveniently penned nearby. At every spot we sang a Christmas carol accompanied by the Salvation Army Band. (By the way Americans, this may surprise you as it did me, but the Army is alive and well here.) It was great to see friends, or people for who I am beginning to claim as that, and eat mince pies and drink mulled cider. I went home absolutely frozen and with dung on my shoes but feeling a bit closer than normal to the first Christmas.

On Sunday we went to the Christmas Carol service at our church, another confirmation that I am in the land of literature, theatre and music. It was a full house, we had to sit squished in the front seat of the balcony with squirming children but they had a couple pieces from the Messiah, a song performed by the the Bengali Fellowship that meets there and a bunch of carols. And all this performed within a cathedral--fabulous acoustics which makes everything sound amazing. Luci did her spinning ballerina moves on the side and made me jump up with 2 seperate declarations of "Pee-pee!" and "Poo-poo!" Jesse either wooed or irritated the lady next to us into giving up some spider man stickers from her purse.

This week is the week before Jesse has a break from school for 2 weeks. So he gets out early tomorrow since there are parent-teacher conferences following. On Wednesday he has a Christmas party that I'm slicing some cheese for. On Thursday we all get to go with J's class to a theatre production of Cinderella, and on Friday he gets out early again.

We are also going to have our first (I really think it's our first) native English friend visit for a dinner on Thursday night. We've had a couple of other folks over but it's been more of a time to pick their brains on things and get acquainted rather than pleasure. Wow, what a big milestone for us! We also have a date with this guy and his roomies to come play Settlers in January.