Christmas Concert

So the Offspring had their Academy's Christmas Concert last night. And, with the exception of a program Frodo was in for the Day Care he spent 1 day/week in for a year, this was the first such time for their parents to witness something like this. Ohh, the fun we've been missing out on (that's only 50% sarcastic). There was a general lack of organization, but as it was the first such thing their Academy had ever done, it made sense--hopefully they learned a lot.

I learned a few things, too:

• My camera's zoom is nowhere near sufficient.
• There's simply nothing like listening to 60(+/-) largely untrained 4^th graders singing the Hallelujah Chorus.
• No matter how strict the uniform policy, there's just no getting around individual personality. It's going to shine through in appearance and/or behavior.
• Arnold is as short as we feared (first time he's ever been in a good sized group of same aged kids)
• Even if your kids aren't the world's best singers, most enthusiastic performers, or all that coordinated -- they are still a great source of pride, and their classes are at least 3x as entertaining to watch as classes they aren't in. (I'd have guessed that before, but I know it now)

Here are the obligatory pics: (click on the thumbnail to see a larger pic, which are equipped with arrows to indicate ours)

Arnold's class sang "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (hence the antlers) and "Jingle Bells"
The Princess' class did "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" and "O Hannukah" (for safety concerns due to excessive amounts of cables all over the stage, they decided at the last minute not to do the hora...ratz)
Samwise's class sang something called "Snowflakes" and a nifty little tune called "Christmas Shopping Blues" (featuring about half the kids wearing sunglasses--many of which actually fit)
Frodo's class sang a French tune that I vaguelly recognized "Il est ne, le divin enfant" and a sonc called "Christmas Line Dance" (which featured, well...a line dance done on the risers. The last stanza brought in the Macarena. I'm thinking about filing a grievance with the State Department of Education over that one)