During the day, while I was cleaning and baking pita bread, the kids were running around excitedly discussing which character they wanted to be in the Nativity play. Aaron was setting up the stable, and Adelia brought down all the stuffed animals she thought would be fitting to have gathered around it. One of the animals she brought was a stuffed cat. Ivan was irritated because he didn't think a cat should be at the stable, so it was in a bad mood. Then Adelia brought down her doll Nora, whom we wrap up every year and use as Baby Jesus (when we don't have a real live baby, at least). And Ivan was even more ticked, because the doll was a girl doll, and obviously Jesus is a boy. He angrily informed us that he didn't want to be in a play that wasn't true. It was kind of humorous and kind of not. On one had, it was making me giggle that he was so serious and adamant that the doll be the correct gender. On the other, I really like the kids to participate in the Nativity. But I sat down next to him and told him he didn't have to be in the play if he didn't want to be, that I wouldn't force him. He could be the audience. A little while later, when that had blown over a bit, I went back to Ivan and told him I needed his help. I told him that I had 3 things I wanted to do as part of our after dinner program, but I wanted him to be in charge of what order we did them in. He perked right up, and got excited about being in charge. After thinking it over for a bit, he decided that after dinner, we would first add the Baby Jesus to the Nativity (In Italy, there is a tradition that you don't add Baby Jesus until Christmas Eve, since Lincoln did his report on Italy, he REALLY wanted to do this tradition this year) and tell about some of the fun Christmas traditions from around the world. Second we would have Lincoln, Ivan, and Grandpa Swan play some Christmas songs on the piano while everyone sang along. And third would be the Nativity play. Once Ivan got all that worked out, he came up to me and told me he guessed he'd be a Shepard in the play if he could have Ruby for a sheep, to which I agreed and did my best to hold in my amused smile until Ivan had left the room. :) I guess he just needed to have a little control over events.
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| Gathered around singing Christmas songs. I love this so much! |
So here we have The Swan Family Circus presenting the Nativity, starring Lincoln as Wiseman, Ivan as a Shepard, Adelia as Cinderella-Mary, Ollie the Angel-Ninja, and Rue the Runaway Sheep. Kid actors are the best. During the middle Ollie was standing on a stool being the angel, and I guess he got a little bored or something, but he just fell straight backwards into the couch, and then he thought that was pretty funny, so he did it over and over and over again for the rest of the play.
After all the kids went to bed and everyone went home. Aaron and I (mostly Aaron) got to work putting the basketball hoop together. We don't do Santa at our house, but the hoop was too big to wrap, so we set it up and hung the stalkings from it. I spent a peaceful few minutes sitting in the lights of the Christmas tree, thinking about the wonderful evening we just had, and about how grateful I am for my Savior who has given me so much. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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