Final OLV Christmas program...

"final" for Abby anyway. Since Abby is a 6th grader, last night was her final OLV Christmas program. Next year she will be in 7th grade at the public school and I am pretty sure there won't be any Christmas programs celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Thank goodness I have 4 more years to go to Christmas programs with Kippy, so I didn't have to bawl my eyes out. Actually, I have found that taking lots of pictures requires me to NOT be a crying mess, or I wouldn't be able to see! For the record, achieving curly hair for my kids is not easy - we have what I call "Stubbornly Straight" hair.
Tuesday afternoon was the "dress rehearsal" of the program, while last night was the real deal. Since I was able to go to both performances, I have to say, the kids really upped their game for their final performance. Of course, the fact that there was no school on Monday due to the storm and then a funeral which prevented the kids from rehearsing in the church worked against them.

Abby got to be the angel "Gabriella" in the play put on by the 6th grade class. Since Abby's class is made up of only 7 girls, they had to create a little play that would work for her all-girl class. Needless to say, it was a bit non-traditional. I witnessed my first Angel Chorus-line as part of a Nativity play!
Angelique volunteered to play "Jingle Bells" during the transition between one class leaving the stage and the next class entering. I'll let you in on a little secret... I staged this photo after the performance, because we missed Angelique playing during the actual program. The reason is that she played during a different time than she had on Tuesday afternoon and we were too far back to actually see her!

Abby played a Christmas song as well. Unknown to us, there was a bit of drama before she played when the music director asked Abby where her music was. Abby said, "I thought you had it." The director figured Abby would pass on playing but Abby said, "I think I know it." Although it wasn't perfect, Abby felt the "show must go on" and played the song from memory. Personally, I would never have been brave enough to do that! Definitely a trait she gets from her dad.

The girls were excited that Auntie Maribeth (Steve's sister), Uncle Dano and cousin Megan were able to come to the performance. It is always nice to have your own fan club!