Elementary Christmas Program

When I was at St. Gabriel’s for ele­men­tary school we would always put on a Christ­mas pro­gram right before Christ­mas break. This was a big to-do; weeks and weeks were spent in prepa­ra­tion for it. Each class had its own set of songs to sing, arranged by our music teacher.

In between acts, when a younger grade was being replaced by an old­er grade, indi­vid­u­als would play stuff on the piano or [in my case, some­times] the sax­o­phone. The boys and girls would some­times har­mo­nize [if we were in old­er grades] and no mat­ter what the grade, there were always solos. I remem­ber once that I sang “He is Born”* in an angel­ic des­cant. At least it felt that way.

*

When I say that this was a big deal, I mean that it was for us, the stu­dents. I’m sure the par­ents just played along for the most part; but for me every time was like open­ing night must be on Broad­way, anx­i­ety mixed with antic­i­pa­tion. Part of what led to this feel­ing was the build-up, the con­stant prac­tices, and the chal­lenges of our music teacher.

Being on that stage, which is burned into my being since it is always the stage in my dreams was amaz­ing as well. As old and dilap­i­dat­ed as it was, it was obvi­ous that at one point it had been great. It had the old-style exposed lights old oak­en floors and a huge main cur­tain with sev­er­al oth­er cur­tains hauled up in that place where all the curtains/sets get hauled up to. Old ropes, sand­bags, you name it, this old thing had it. Any­way, the point is, all of that tak­en togeth­er made it an extra spe­cial evening. Plus we all got to be up late since show­time was at 7:30 and it ran for a few hours. The place was always packed. After­ward we always went to Dairy Queen and my Grand­pa would treat. Still makes me smile.