Tyler's Christmas Program

After what felt like months, my computer is finally fixed & I’m back online. I suppose the down time was good. It enabled me to finish all my Christmas wrapping in good time, and I even managed to read a couple books (the kind without pictures!).

To pick up where I left off – Tyler’s very first school Christmas program. As I’ve mentioned before, Tyler’s preschool is part of a larger Christian school containing grades K-8, in addition to preschool classes for ages 3, 4, & 5. On the 19th, the preschool and kindergarten classes had their Christmas programs.

When I reminded Tyler of his upcoming performance earlier in the week, he looked alarmed and said, “But I don’t know all the words yet!” When the time came he knew enough of the words, though. After his class filed up on stage, he puffed his chest out and shouted out the words to “Go Tell it on the Mountain”. He took his job on stage quite seriously. He told us earlier that they weren’t supposed to bow after they sang, just smile while we clapped. After each song, Tyler put his hands to his cheeks and pointed at his smile. He clapped for himself once or twice, too. He did the typical little kid stuff – waved at us from the stage, flipped the hair of the little girl next to him, stomped his feet on the stage to hear it echo. Fortunately before he went on stage I suggested he put his hands in his pockets if he didn’t know what to do with them. He made a point of stuffing them in his pockets when he first got up there. No telling where he might have put them otherwise! (Ron was hoping for a Funniest Home Videos moment, though, and was disappointed I said anything.) At the end all the classes went back up and sang Away in a Manger together.

It’s difficult to relay exactly how special this night was. For me, Christmas is a time of high emotions anyway. The humanity of Christ’s birth gets to me, especially when I think about how Mary must have felt. Luke 2:19 says “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Although she was the mother of Jesus, she was still a mom who must have felt the fierce intensity of love for her newborn son. Thinking about that inevitably makes me choke up. Add to that our son, standing so tall and proud on stage with his friends and classmates, confidently belting out his Christmas songs. It was also our 14th wedding anniversary. Don’t tell Tyler & Danielle, but we weren’t too interested in having kids (ever) when we first got married. Who would have thought 14 years later we’d be celebrating our anniversary by proudly watching our not-so-little guy sing about Jesus’ birth. It was truly a special night.

I treasured up all these things…