Charlie's Preschool Christmas Program

The first Friday of December, Charlie’s preschool had its annual Christmas program. The program consisted of both classes, the youngest is 3-4 and the oldest is 4-5 and both classes have about 9 kids, with each child having a line to say and several songs being sung between the recited lines.

Charlie was really, really excited for the program. They practiced for about a month beforehand, and Charlie would come home and “practice” for us too. He would get up on the bricks in front of our fireplace and tell me, “Okay! This is my stage. And here are my sheep. And now I am going to perform for you.” He would often do a little dance and then take a big bow. He sang all of the songs endlessly, at home, in the car, even in the grocery store. I knew most of the songs, but there were a couple that were unfamiliar to me.

The night of the program we headed over to his teacher’s with the salad that we were supposed to bring for the potluck afterwards. Charlie was really excited up until It was time for him to go up to the stage. Then he got really nervous. He had one of the first lines - “I hear it! What IS that sound?” - which was followed by the song Jingle Bells. He did say his line, very quietly, but he did not sing the songs. Instead he stared out at the crowd with a big blank face. There were a couple of other kids in his class, the younger one, which did the same. He actually looked quite embarrassed.

By the time the older class was saying their lines, Charlie was laughing more and more – but still not singing. I knew that this meant trouble, because it meant that he was finding something very funny. Sure enough, he started yelling at the other children in the second to last song, which was a very loud rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, “Stop! Stop singing everyone! This is too loud! Stop means STOP!” He thought it was funny, the kids just sang louder and giggled, and some of the adults started giggling too. So, of course he repeated his performance while the other kids sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas. And then he took a very big bow. He was very proud of himself.

What can you do with a child that would be 4 in a few days? We smiled and told him we were proud of him for performing in the program... Later, the next day, we talked to him about politeness. :) With where we were sitting we really couldn’t get any good pictures or video, so I apologize for the lack of that! We did take a picture before we left the house.

Charlie had a lot of fun sitting at the table with all of the other preschool kids and eating dinner. There was another adult who was at the little table with them for most of the time, named Miles, that Charlie was trying to keep up an adult conversation with. It was pretty funny! Once Charlie was done eating, it was time for us to leave. All in all, it was a very cute program and Charlie had a good time at the party!