Here's what we went through to prepare:
Thursday--all afternoon dress rehearsal in the auditorium at the other school
Friday--we had to finish our display boards (more on that later)
Monday--The DAY--We had classes in the morning, and then practice in the afternoon. We had a bit of down time before all the parents came to see the school and eat dinner. After dinner, we went to the auditorium and had the performance (it was about 90 minutes long).
The performance was not just our school; the local elementary school orchestra opened up and then our sister primary school danced and sang throughout the night. There was a raffle in the middle of it all, only to be finished off by a visit from Santa at the end. Here's some pictures to help explain:
One of the 7th graders and me (notice their stockings and Christmas decorations hanging in the window!)
One of our new students in 7th grade.
Our new 5th grader--all the new students are the ones that I'm teaching English to for three hours every morning.
Our 3rd grade and 2nd grade angels during rehearsal last week.
Mary in the yellow robe, Joseph in the blue robe and the shepherds in the light blue robes. Notice their shepherd staffs--the tops are still white because I hadn't finished covering them yet with brown contact paper (also taken during rehearsal last week).
One of the creepy Santa posters in our cafeteria--I'm not sure what he's winking at :)
The opening ceremony--One of the German girls in 12th grade, Karri in her new dress, the other German girl, and Anna (the one who just got married). They were the MCs for the night and had to dress up all pretty. Behind them is the orchestra, complete with Santa hats. Let the games begin!
The Happy Clappy Song (AKA "If you're happy and you know it...")--The second grade class sang it in four languages (Korean, Chinese, English and Japanese). The Korean students are in the middle--they were the only ones dressed in traditional clothes. Check out the awesome flower power on the overhead!
One of our 8th grade students and a 5th grade student doing a piano and violin duet--it was pretty cool. I braided the girl's hair!
The Chinese school performing Rudolph--check out the end of this post for the video link of the most amazing dancing I have ever seen.
Two of our Korean middle schoolers doing a 4-hand piano performance. I also braided their hair :)
Our shepherds backstage nervously flashing the peace sign.
The second grade angel--cute as a button!
The real live performance--the shepherds waiting to "go and see this wonderful thing that has happened..." (one of their lines).
The whole cast--most of the school, two angels, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds (and an empty manger, hand made by Daniel) all singing "Silent Night."
The Grand Finale of "Auld Lang Syne" (The New Year's song), played beautifully by the Chinese orchestra. Yes, that's confetti falling from the air, they had confetti gun-like things to make the entire stage covered with confetti by the night's end.
The only reason I'm posting this picture is to show the Santa Claus monster-man. They made the father of one of the German girls dress up as Santa and throw candy into the crowd at the end of the whole thing, but he had to wear a mask (I don't know why) and it made him look like a scary Santa, not a jolly Santa.
Daniel and our Safeguard (what they call a security guard, I guess) after it was all over.
Lindsey, Beth, Karri, Jamie, Megan, me and Daniel in the lobby of our school.
My display board for science and English.
Daniel, me and Beth in front of our display boards for the middle school.
Some of the art that our students have done in art class--very traditional and pretty.
I have uploaded 5 videos on Google to show bits and pieces of the Christmas play--it's rough (I coach my students through some lines and also do some crowd control at other points), but if that is overlooked, the heart of the whole show shines through. View the videos here, here, here, here and here.
This past weekend Lindsey, Karri, and I went to Suzhou (the next town over) to go shopping. I didn't take any pictures, but the last three postings on Karri's blog give a taste as to what the past few days have been like for all of us.
I am starting to feel the everyday-ness of life settling in. There's less excitement to blog about, but maybe I'll post some pictures later of the incredible fog that was this morning.
Christmas is almost here! Craziness--we've been giving our students a taste of American Christmas culture by showing "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "The Grinch that Stole Christmas" (cartoon version) during English. I'm looking forward to the upcoming break; I anticipate a good time of relaxation, baking, hanging out, and fun. I'll be up visiting friends in Tianjin again, so this blog may be a bit quiet until after New Year's.
Until then, may the Spirit of Advent follow you in these next few days as we wait together in expectation.
Grace and Peace,
rpm
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