Last Tuesday night I attended my son’s Christmas play at the MDO Day School he attends twice a week. The play consisted of 2, 3, 4, & 5 year olds. I’ve know that for the past two months my 4-year old, Ryan, has been learning Christmas songs, and memorizing Luke 2:7 & Luke 2:11, and has even memorized two entire lines for the play. Ryan was seriously stoked about the proceedings and was literally counting down days until the ‘Christmas Show.’ His Granny, from Arkansas, even came in for the ceremonies and his Daddy had the camera charged up for the great festivities.
Now for those of you unaware of how these things work, the parents fight over the ‘good’ seats. We arrived 30 minutes before to stake out the seats, and make our claim on the best picture taking seats. My wife even asked the teacher which side of the stage Ryan would be sitting on, so we could get seats on his side of the stage. Of course sitting in the ‘good’ seats with a 3 year old and a 1 year old waiting 3o minutes for the Christmas play to start bordered on insane.
Promptly at 7pm the kiddos start their graduation-like walk down the aisles to take their place on stage. Of course most of the children immediately start looking freaked at the sight of all these scary old people sitting in the normally empty chairs out in the audience. A few kids start with the obligatory crying fits when they hit the stage. One little 2 year old simply made faces at the audience for the entirety of the 20 minute production; I mean pulling your lips apart with your fingers face. The same kid randomly started flashing the Hook’em Horns sign to his daddy halfway through the play. The true greatness happened during the last song, when two kids actually started a WWE throw down on stage over who was supposed to stand where.
Now my son, Ryan, is a well-kept, organized, very methodical little 4 year old. He looked like a robot on the stage most of the night. He knew all the words to the songs, said his lines perfectly, stood in his singing line perfectly, and did all the hand signs required for the songs. He looked like a kid on a mission, and no annoying 2 year old was gonna distract him from his goal of completing the Christmas play with dignity. I did get him to give me a wave in between songs, but even that was a secret wave; you know the kind… where the kid waves down by his pockets so no one else will see him waving; it was very discreet.
The crazy, crazy, crazy things us parents will do to see our children perform Christmas plays. And we still have another at the church next week, so it’s far from over. After the play, we were all heaping huge amounts of praise on Ryan for his performance, when he proclaimed to his family,
“When I grow up I’m going to sing in front of lots of people, and everyone will love listening to me.”
Aren’t 4 year olds so humble?
