Home for the Holidays

I'm a little out of order here. We went to Santa Cruz after the kids were done with school for the year. BUT, before kids can be done with school, there must be much celebrating at school. For Mam, that meant participating in the preschool's annual Holiday Sing. The school does four of these each year. One for kids who go to school Tuesday/Thursday mornings, one for kids on the same days, but in the afternoons, one for kids who go MWF mornings and a last one for kids going MWF afternoons. Mam's group represented the final group of about 100 kids, going on stage to perform.

Mam's class is the only class of 3-year-olds in the bunch. The rest are 4- and 5-year-olds. As usual, Mam loved being on stage and seeing Mommy, Daddy, Gram and Grandpa in the chairs below. Also, as usual, the crowd of type-A parents arrived ridiculously early, so even though Daddy arrived to save us seats about 20 minutes early (I was volunteering in Smuch's classroom 'til the last minute), we sat in the back row of the main section.

The kids were predictably adorable singing about a dozen holiday songs with hand motions and piano accompaniment. Afterwards, they got to have a cookie snack in their classroom while all the parents stood around and congratulated them on their performance. One of my favorite moments of the day was when Santa made a surprise visit to the classroom. Mam was visibly in awe...

Who knew Santa came to see kids at preschool and hand out presents too??

Not to be outdone (although he kinda was), Smunch also had a party at school, although no concert. His party consisted of decorating gingerbread/graham cracker houses. And his was the best! Well, no, it wasn't the best at all, but it had character...a character I suspect was influenced by Smunch's rather strong desire to eat his house. It was devoured fewer than 24 hours after it got home!

The highlight of that party was that I'd accidentally gotten myself appointed coordinator of the class gift. I was fine with that, but the presentation was another story. I have no self confidence when it comes to standing in front of a crowd, even if it's mostly just a crowd of kindergartners. So, you can imagine I felt just slightly proud of myself for getting all the kids to chime in and say "Thank you, Ms. Britton!" as we presented her gift. And to the aide as well. Phew!

One final hug for his teacher before he left and we were all home for the holidays...for two weeks...whatever will we do?? Stay tuned...