Thursday, the 17th was Nicholas' school Christmas concert. As in years past, it was held at the village church, which makes for a beautiful setting. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of seats available, as the population was even smaller 300 years ago when it was built, as it is now. We have been just right on time to previous concerts, resulting in us standing in the way back, or out in the foyer, able to hear but unable to see much of anything. I wanted this year to be different. So instead of dropping off Nick early for practice and coming back with the rest of the family later, I made sure everyone was ready to go when he was. Since I have never been there early before, though, I didn't realize we weren't allowed to enter the church until 10 minutes before the concert started. This meant that we were standing in the foyer, leaning up against the door for a good 15 minutes or so. That is an eternity to small children. It got worse as the crowd started to grow and press in on us. It was pretty cool to be the first ones in line, though! 🙂
Chris was surprised when I didn't head right for the front row, since we had our pick of seats. But I figured that it would be better to be prepared for a quick escape, so chose the fourth row back instead. This way, if we had to leave with a screaming toddler in tow, we would only have to walk past HALF the town. Alexandra turned out to be a perfect angel, as long as Papa held her in his arms, it was Noah that had to be threatened with bodily harm before he settled down and acted like a human rather than a monkey.
The choir consisted of the fourth, fifth and sixth graders, and they did a great job. Pascal, a boy in Nick's class who played the drums at the circus performance, also accompanied them on two songs in the concert. He did a great job. Herr Geiger played his Geige, or violin, which always cracks the kids up, and Christian Stuckert, a very nice older man from town, played the piano.
The acoustics in the church aren't exactly Tabernacle quality, but it still sounded very beautiful. Nick was next to the most ill-behaved child in his class, so it was a bit distracting trying to watch Nick while this blonde head kept bouncing up and down next to him. And no, it wasn't in time to the music!
I was happy to see that Fatima, an Afghanistan refuge in our town, also took part in the concert. She is Muslim, but she and the rest of her family are trying very hard to fit in as well as possible here. And really, singing a few Christmas carols isn't going to threaten anyone's religion. I don't care what my kids sing, as long as there are no swear words. I met the mother at the Advent window unveiling up at the school and told her how much we all liked her daughter, Mahdie, who is in Sophie's class. We had a nice little chat about the girls. They are a truly beautiful family, and I am so happy they are safe and well taken care of here in our village. They escaped a very horrible situation back in Afghanistan, but it makes me sad for all the other innocent families who are still trapped in the middle of all that ugliness.
Okay, sorry got off on a slight tangent there.
The kids have been practicing these songs all semester long in music class, and even had homework of memorizing the words of each new song as they learned it. The one they were most excited about learning, is the one song that seemed slightly out of place me. It was just odd to hear a bunch of elementary school children singing about a broken heart at Christmastime. What was the song? Well, I told you in the title of this post; that Wham! classic, "Last Christmas". :) But since learning the song was part of their English lessons, where the Queen's English is emphasized, they sort of overdid it on the pronounciation part, and it sounded like they were singing "lost" instead of "last". Even George did not sing it like that, and he's English! But they definitely sang it with
enthusiasm, and Pascal totally rocked out on the drums.
For the final song they sang "Stille Nacht". They had tried to include several different languages in the program, to represent the diversity (haha) at the school. There was something in Latin, Romansch, Swiss German, English, and High German. After the last verse of "Stille Nacht", they sang the first verse again, this time in English. It was very nice. It was a great way to take a break from all the hustle and stress of getting things ready for the big celebration and just enjoy the spirit of the season. Thanks, Nick!
Sounds so nice!