Christmas Concerts, Parties, and General Festiveness!

I'm not sure who decided that every musical group must have a Christmas concert, but we are in the THROES of Christmas concert season!  It's a LOT, to be honest, but I love Christmas music so much, I can't help but love it all, even if I'm also so burned out and completely exhausted.  And, of course, we're also decorating and doing all the other seasonal fun, too...  Let's see what I can find pictures of...

Here we have Kendra helping Craig put lights around the outside of the house...

She really liked sitting out there.  Apparently she has Craig's non-fear of heights!

And they did such a great job!

The house looks festive, inside and out!

This decoration makes me laugh

Colton and Camille were so cute and set up the tree in the basement for the seminary students!

Tuesday was Ryder's first band concert and he was so excited!  He just started learning trombone this year, and every day when he goes to school, if it's a day when he has band, he tells me it's going to be a good day.  He was sitting up so straight and proud:

I'm always impressed that a teacher can take all those students and teach them all these different instruments at the same time!  They did great.  Ryder's concert was the same day as UVA's Messiah Sing-In which I LOVE (and which hadn't happened since 2019), so as soon as the 6th grade band finished, I slipped out and raced to the grounds to sing with my Oratorio buddy, Leah.  We had THE best time-- I couldn't stop smiling the entire concert!

Grabbing some fresh air during the intermission, before we shoved our way to the table with cookies and cider!

I was leading FiA the next morning, though, so I had to stay up even later that night planning my workout once I was home.  That about killed me.

I made us run to the other end of the mall and back so we could see the tree!  And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I wore my ankle weights.  That was dumb of me.

Friday was our ward Christmas party.  Craig and Adam had been at the church late on Wednesday setting up the tables and putting greenery on them (while I was having a marvelous time at book club).  The primary was doing a nativity, so I tried to improvise a shepherd's costume...  Colton might look a little more Scottish than Israeli, here...

I am so bad at this stuff.

And then it turned out they HAD costumes, so Colton (on the left) looked great!  Phew!

And Camille got to be an angel!

The whole thing was short and barely practiced and lovely-- I like it when we don't take ourselves too seriously!

After the nativity, the kids got to go meet Santa and do some crafts while the grown-ups got to hang out (and eat more).  This was especially awesome because my friend Josephine managed to come to the party from Powhattan, so I was excited to get to catch up with her!

Bentley was only willing to visit Santa because he could get a candy cane.  Santa got him laughing and I just love this picture so much.

Topher, Joe and Kendra help Camille with the crafting!

At the end, when everything was cleaned up, the kids slid around in their socks "ice skating" while I chatted with my friend Megan.  Everyone was so happy!  This didn't even end with tears-- what are the odds?

The next morning, Craig took Ryder and Colton to get haircuts while Camille and I wandered around the neighborhood delivering Christmas cards.  Then Craig brought Bentley, Kendra, and Ryder to the (mostly empty) mall to help with Charlottesville's toy lift!  The kids were a little unsure what to expect of this, but they ended up having a great time.  The woman running things knew how to keep them busy and kept plying Ryder with snacks-- he says he can't wait to do it again next year!

As soon as they got home we had to hurry and change our clothes because the kids had their piano recital at a church in Crozet!  We took a lot of video of that, but no still pictures, so you'll just have to imagine it.  But there were probably about 13 kids playing piano, and five of them were mine, so that more bang for my buck, as far as I'm concerned.  Tom and Donna met us there and then very kindly took us out to dinner after, so the whole day was a real treat!  We finished it by watching Home Alone as a family.  I love hearing my kids in hysterics as the burglers get clobbered all over at the end of the movie.  Good times, indeed!

And SUNDAY.  After church, I took a nap and woke up just in time to race to the Charlottesville Municipal Band concert!  I have a friend from FiA who plays French horn in the band, so I wanted to cheer her on.  Ryder decided to come along, too, but then the place was so packed, we had to sit apart.  I knew Ryder would be well behaved, though, so I was very proud of him.  And the seat I found just happened to be next to Peg, another friend from Oratorio, so we had fun together!  Her husband plays clarinet in the band.

Craig was awesome and made dinner while we were gone, so we got home, ate, I changed my clothes, and Kendra and I headed to the stake center for our Joy to the World concert!  I stopped singing in this when I joined Oratorio (it just seemed like too much, having choir practice every Sunday AND Monday night), but a couple weeks ago my friend Christine guilted me into coming back.  She said the soprano section was in desperate need of a few more singers.  By then there were only two more rehearsals (one of which was right after stake conference last week) plus the performance (which I was going to anyway), so I figured I could manage.  I would have liked more time to learn the music, but I'm still glad I got to participate.  As always, the Jones Family singers (a truly gifted gospel choir) were the stars of the show-- every time those ladies began belting out their notes, I wish I could sing the way they do-- it's so powerful!  They're the reason I get so excited for this concert.  The SVU a cappella group Accolade was pretty fantastic, too.  (I don't think I've ever been present for live beatboxing, and the guy doing it was INCREDIBLE.)  They did the Pentatonix arrangement of "Away in a Manger" and as soon as they began, my kids got so excited.

Another great evening of amazing music and staying out way too late.

And THEN the next night (last night) was the first of two 3-hour rehearsals with the orchestra for Oratorio, getting all ready for our concerts on Saturday.  And somewhere in there is my neighborhood white elephant party, too.

Truly, this month is INSANE.  But really, could it possibly be any better???  Maybe next week I can try sleeping again...