A Christmas Concert
It's kind of funny that we've never done this before.
Right at the end of what I think was the busiest Christmas of my entire life, the kids had their first orchestra concert. They had been practicing for months in their orchestra class and together at home (one of the perks of being in the same orchestra!), so they really, really knew the pieces. But I guess they were still really nervous. M said it was because when you do a recital, nobody is really sure if you've messed up, but when you're playing with an orchestra, the other orchestra members notice your mistake. Ha! That is pretty logical. But one day she'll realize it's not totally true.
Apparently there is also a little group class for kids at G's level (which we didn't even know about) that was performing at the same concert, so our teacher got him into that performance too. It was nice that he had something to perform also! He only had to go to one extra recital too, and that was a real plus for us.
I was completely confused about pretty much everything about the concert, partly because it was our first one and partly because I had too much other stuff going on. For example, I spent the whole time thinking G needed to wear a white button down shirt and black slacks because that's what the boys in the orchestra with M and E were wearing. I didn't even realize it was a separate group that he was in, right until he walked up for the concert still wearing his red shirt and jeans from the children's choir at church and I said I needed to go downstairs with him to help him change into his orchestra clothes. They just looked at me like..... Ummm, he's already wearing the right clothes? Ha. Good thing the children's choir happened to require the same thing. Even the girls, who dressed themselves, accidentally put on each other's dresses and nobody noticed until I saw them up close once the concert was done. Poor E was tripping over hers the whole time and M's only came down to her calves.
It was pretty fun for all the kids to be decked out in Christmas stuff and the girls in their fancy dresses. And since the conductor is our regular teacher, the girls definitely got special treatment in the orchestra. They played one song that was supposed to be really funny, and the girls got to come stand at the front of the group and dance while plucking with the teacher! They were so embarassed, but once they loosened up a little, they had a lot of fun.
I found it quite funny that the emcee who announced the different songs kept talking about how it was so special that it was Christmas day and we got to have a concert. And I just kept thinking to myself how terrible it was to be sitting there, bone tired, with my kids in a concert while our pile of Christmas presents sat unopened at home. I'm pretty sure we even ate leftovers for dinner that night, and I didn't even care.
After the concert was all over, we all breathed a deep sigh of relief and headed back home to finally get to have Christmas. We opened our presents and didn't walk out the front door again until Tuesday morning. I can't believe we survived it all!