Preludes to Christmas

The three C's got their own Christmas tree up this week, and they were so proud of it. The hours I happened to be there, the ornaments were rearranged quite a few times but always with gentleness and awareness of how fragile the ornaments can be. :)

The girls were also very concerned that they needed to practice for their upcoming Christmas Program later in the week. One of the songs that they sang and sang, was about an angel band on Christmas morning. If you would like to see them 'practicing' you can click here. I must say it was a cute song and on the night of the program all of the children in the class really got into the moment when singing it.

Claire and Chloe are ready to head out to school in the picture below. It was an interesting morning finding just the right shirt and pants for each girl, both of whom certainly like to be in charge of what they wear and how their hair is fixed.

The chairs that you can see placed together in the pictures below were a castle. Just before the castle was completely 'constructed' Chris took over this chair.

This play/story of the castle went on for at least an hour. Claire was the queen and Chloe was the princess. The conversations between them were very funny. The queen wanted cotton candy for her breakfast and the princess was very interested in pleasing the queen. Eventually there were blankets galore spread over the tops of the chairs. They worked to hard to make it just perfect. The girls are so good about letting Chris join in whatever they are doing. Sometimes they ignore him and he just plays in the middle of their activity, and sometimes they try and bring him into the scenario.

The next activity was coloring and drawing. Once again, you see Chris watching them. He usually wants to color at the same time but on this day he was more interested in what they were making.

Finally the night for the Christmas Program arrived. All of the children had such a great time and performed so well. I wish I could have been in the front row and taken a video of most of it. I did get a very few pictures but from half-way back and dodging heads in front of us. Claire and Chloe sang their
hearts out on the 4-5 songs their class presented.

At the end of the program, as a surprise to the children, Santa arrived. The looks of awe and wonder  on the children's faces were so cute.  Chris loved Santa much to our surprise, and made his way over to him several times, but never when I had the camera ready :(. Claire and Chloe and one of their friends take a moment to pose with Santa.

Our family has plans this upcoming week to celebrate Paula's birthday, spend time together, and next weekend bake Christmas cookies. I thought today how much we take for granted when we make plans. So many heartbroken families will not be able to complete their plans of celebrating Christ's birth together as a complete family following the unspeakable tragedy yesterday in Connecticut. I am praying that the God of all comfort will just wrap His arms around those grieving parents, grandparents, and family members. I just can't imagine.....