Respect my Nativity!!!!

It’s been a busy week chez-shrews…wee man performed in his first ever nativity play, which we were allowed to see on Monday.  When rehearsals first started, obvs i was a bit upset for him to discover that he wasn’t a King (which he wanted to be), nor a shepherd, nor angel, nor anything that sounded remotely like a major role.  Though, tbh, i don’t think he really noticed that rehearsals for a play were going on until at least a fortnight into them.  I got my information, as usual, from his more observant mates.  Eventually we discovered (via a note from the teacher) that he was to be a ‘chinese boy’.  Yes.  Not a part that i remembered from school.  Though i was energised to learn that other kids were also chinese boys, and some were even polish dancers…and so to the big day.  Grandma came up, and we both took our places on the lowest, most uncomfortable bench we could find.  The angels, kings and shepherds were all on stage, and wee man was hidden over in the corner – what suspense to see how this would unfold!

The older kids, able to remember (just) lines, explained that we would be taken on a trip around the world, to see how different christian countries celebrated xmas.  Hmmmm.  China – that famously christian country?!?!  What kind of political geography do they teach nowadays?  And so we duly saw Australia (kids in summer clothes, enjoying xmas on a beach to some nice ‘aboriginal’ music), Malawi (hmmm, the 99% white cast wearing odd petals dancing to a curiously choral – no drums whatsoever – hymn), America (dull),  Ireland (actually, some quite good river dancing on display here, considering…) – and of course the not-at-all communist/anti-religous China.  Aw bless.  The more observant kids (and to be fair, this was not nec restricted to the older ones – it would appear that if your kid is away with the fairies most of the time, school doesn’t make a huge amount of difference…), were doing some kind of hand dancing.  My kid was playing with his hat.  Though, looking back at the photos, he wasn’t actually the least observant, that was his mate Rufus, in the back – who in all my photos is literally doing his own thang…at least wee man was attempting to keep up with the moves – in between knocking off his hat, and putting it back on to much comedy affect.  Rufus, bless his little cottons is actually more away with the fairies than our boy – he even has a masking taped ‘X’ on the floor in the classroom where he has to sit, to ensure that he’s amidst the rest of the class and not doolllalying distractingly at the fringes.  Am amazed (and obvs proud), that this shame has not yet been imparted on wee man.  Who, for all his reticence to tell me what on earth is going in school (and leading me to believe that he’s no real idea) – does seem to be catching on relatively well to reading and numbers and such – am amazed…!!!!  And happy…

And what of the kinds and angels and shepherds?  Well, we waited, through all the agonising countries, anticipating a traditional story as the finale.  But nothing.  The poor kids, whose parents had been somewhat silently crowing that their progeny would be playing the ‘parts’, merely sat on the stage for the whole performance, not dancing.  They were very good, bless’em.  At first, i thought that they’d been chosen because they were so good and attentive – now i think it was because they were so good and attentive that they were given the parts that were the least onerous.  Had they made our boy or even Rufus a king or some such, they’d’ve been creating merry hell with boredom!

I would love to accompany this post with pics, but sadly, i took’em badly on my phone – and since we were massively warned against posting pics of kids we don’t know online, shan’t risk it…(sad emoticon).

Meantime, i’d love to say xmas preparation continues unabated.  But that’d be a bare lie.  In comparison to last year, where i was making cards and mince pies like they were going out of fashion – this year, other than the xmas cakes there’s been little action…i had intended on making cards again – but have been let down by my materials (bad workman/tools yadeya).  And time has been eaten by work and ill kids…that’s my excuse anyway…soz peeps x