No Presents Until You Say Your Verse for Grandma!

Do you remember that? How every Christmas you were hauled up in front of all your aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents and instructed to "say your verse...come on PM, you did *so* good in the program, just say your verse...Grandma will be so happy...."

And you stood there, sweaty and panicked, like some Christmas reindeer caught in the headlights of the anticipatory stares of people whom you loved and who you knew loved you in theory but (let's face it) you only saw twice a year?

And your mind went completely blank, the adrenaline started pumping, and all you could remember were stray, disconnected bits of the two lines you so triumphantly recited the night before in church?

(Not that this has ever happened to me.)

Well, I'm not gonna do that to my kids, no way, no how. Not so much to spare them, but because I am lazy. Making them practice their Christmas program parts any longer than I absolutely have to (read: juuuuust enough the night before to get the words into short-term memory and make it through the next morning's pageant) is not on my to-do list this week.

Fortunately, the miracle of technology comes to the rescue, and I can nonetheless share their theatrical prowess with you.

First, from the Christmas pageant at church yesterday. I was director again this year, and despite my most stricken pleas of "isn't there anyone else who wants to be Joseph?", I had to cast The Boy as Jesus's earthly father. The Girl, disgruntled that she couldn't be Mary, had to content herself with a dual role of Innkeeper/Jewish Leader.

Behold, the glory (you'll probably need to turn the computer volume waaaaay up):

(Yep, that's my arm making a cameo directorial appearance.)

The Girl didn't get a lot of facetime in our recordings of the grand event, mostly because The Husband didn't want to be one of those parents hogging the aisle and blocking the view for every other parent. So I captured The Girl's later program-worthy effort (might want to bring that volume down a bit):

This represents the first attempt she and I have made to teach her how to play piano. Our results were lovely as you can see, but it definitely confirmed that we need to get her a real teacher.

Partly because I have no idea how to go about doing it. Mostly because if I try, there will be tears of frustration and yelling and slamming of keys, and so forth.

And who knows what her reaction will be?