Silent Night

Jesse's first CHRISTMAS PROGRAM

Jesse's first time wearing a tie was a huge hit. He was struttin' around the house before we left for the program, proud as could be in his fancy duds. Very suave indeed, my little metro man. Cousin Abby also had a new outfit for the program, along with French braids in her hair. All Cousin Anna wants for Christmas is her two back teeth to come in so she can stop gnawing her fingers.

I am happy to report that although he looked a wee bit skeptical about standing in front of a roomful of strangers, Jesse at least remained standing (or occasionally leaning against the fence post) for the required duration.


He did not run screaming from the platform or do any of the myriad public antics parents so dread. For instance, my friend's son spent the bulk of the evening performing the Robot. Solo and unscripted. But he's five. I thought he pulled it off nicely.

Another child well...folded...to the music I guess you'd say, the whole upper body wrenching side-to-side, back-and-forth in surprisingly rhythmic 4/4 time. But he was a sheep at the manger. A violently spasmodic sheep, but there you go.

Another child plunged off the top tier of the staging, costume flying helter-skelter. She quickly found her way back up onto the stage, safe, if a little flustered.

Abby was overwraught, knowing she was going to get up and sing with her classmates in front of everybody. But Jesse was blissfully ignorant of what lay in store for the evening. And of course, there is that small detail: he doesn't really sing yet. At all. Sometimes I catch him humming, which is pretty cool. But definitely no singing.

Somewhere inside I was secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, I would see his little mouth moving along with "Away in a Manger," once he had the voices of all those other kids behind him.

But no, he simply stood there rather pensively, sort of taking it all in wide-eyed. The lights, the Christmas trees, the people.

It was a good night. A silent night, but a good night.