Painful Performances & Tender Mercies

It is now the end of January, and still not a week has passed that a student, or parent, or community member has told me how much they miss me teaching music at the elementary school. And I miss it tremendously, too. The first time the elementary students had a musical concert this year was in December, and I was made very aware then of what is happening to the school's music program; it is nowhere near the level of what it was when I was in charge. It makes my heart physically hurt to see and hear about how the children don't love and enjoy music like they did before. 

The Christmas concert was a disaster, and I can admit that without bias, because every other parent in attendance that I've talked to said the same thing. It was held in December at the end of the school day in conjunction with the school's regular monthly assembly in our school gym (which is not a full-sized gym), and the musical program consisted of every grade singing one Christmas song in between the items on the assembly agenda. So not only was the gym already packed with our entire studentbody, but parents, grandparents, and family members for all the students also tried to cram in the small space, too. There simply wasn't enough room for everyone, so there were adults standing in the halls, in the foyer, and outside peeking through the one window. The assembly lasted for over an hour, and it was hot, and the kids were restless, and the parents were upset. There should've been a music assembly on its own, not in conjunction with all the regular monthly awards, too. It took FOREVER to get through the program! It didn't even end until after school was supposed to be out! It was extremely painful for me to watch, because this has never been the way that I directed musical programs in the past; I always had themes, and made the focus on the individual students in each grade, and they were fun and special shows that both the performers and the audience enjoyed.

In the assembly, the second grade sang about Hanukkah. Kanyon read a few words before the song started about what the dreidel is.   

This was the view of the performers from the very back of the crowded space.

Kanyon reading about the dreidel.

The 2nd graders each held up small dreidels as they sang.

The 5th graders were the very last performers, and they didn't start singing until 4:00, which is when school is supposed to get out! They sang "Jingle Bell Rock".

A view of all the 5th graders

Jonah is in the second row with the green hoodie.
Micah is in the 3rd row wearing an orange shirt. 

During one part of the song, the kids all put on sunglasses and pretended
to play air guitars. They liked that part the best!

Thankfully, there were a few highlights that happened that day to make it more bearable for me: the kindergarteners that I help all day were such cute performers! The morning class sang their songs in our classroom before their parents picked them up at the end of class, and the afternoon class were the first performers in the afternoon assembly and then were excused to go back to our classroom because there wasn't enough room for us to be in the gym. Mrs. Mark had taught all the students to sing "Silent Night" with sign language, and that was their first song before they did a snowman song that Mrs. Platt had taught them. 

The morning students singing Silent Night with sign language. 

The afternoon class singing Silent Night using sign language.

Also, another special moment of the day was when one of the morning students gave me this Christmas bouquet of flowers. It was so beautiful!!! I really appreciated her thoughtfulness, and the timing of it was perfect!

But the best part of the day, and a true tender mercy, was when I got to perform with my friend Amanda that night at the Stake High Council's Christmas party. We'd been asked a month before to be the entertainment for the party, and had worked together on creating a fun, short, musical program. It was a delight for me to use my creative and musical directing skills again. I really enjoyed coming up with the theme, and the program details. For weeks we discussed ideas, and practiced songs, and worked on the line-up. We decided to do a "Name that Christmas Movie" by singing 6 songs, and saying quotes from 6 other movies, for a total of 12 different Christmas Movies. When school got out that afternoon, instead of feeling depressed and upset about what had happened that day, I was so full of excitement and anticipation over what was going to happen that night! It was a true tender mercy from God that we'd been asked to be the performers on the exact night of the first school music assembly. I felt privileged and honored that someone valued my musical skills enough to ask me to be the musical entertainment, and I felt like Heavenly Father was letting me know to keep using my musical talents to enrich the lives of others, and to not withdraw, which is so typical of me when I get upset (and what would've happened after school that day had I not had this to look forward to). When we arrived at the Sessions' home that night where the dinner party was, everything was decorated so beautifully!!! I was overjoyed to be a part of the festivities that night!

After dinner, Amanda and I prepared to perform for the guests still seated at the tables. Our segment lasted about 15 minutes. For each of the 6 songs we sang, we used props a/o costume accessories, and we had SO much fun!!! I think we were a bit over the top at times, and kind of shocked the older audience, but I don't regret it one bit!

We started off by quoting some lines from Miracle on 34th Street, and then we sang "Baby, it's Cold Outside". During the song, I put on a hat and scarf, and then she handed me a wine goblet, and took back off my hat and scarf. It took a little bit for the audience to guess where this song came from, but finally, after some help from Amanda and I, the Stake President said "Elf?" and his wife was like "Was that YOU that just said that?!". It was quite comical!

Our next quote was from Muppet Christmas Carol, and then we put on aprons and held trays with little mugs and sang "Hot, Hot, Hot! Hot Chocolate" a cappella. They had shocked faces at first, but then they realized we were singing a g-rated song from the movie Polar Express!

The next quote was a famous one from It's a Wonderful Life: "Look, Daddy. Teacher says every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings". Then we strung some wii guitar hero guitars around our necks, and sang "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" and rocked out as we sang! This was super fun to sing, and one of the high councilors even videoed it and put it on facebook! By this point, the audience was starting to get the hang of it, and somebody even shouted out the movie it was from before we were even done singing: "Home Alone!".

Our next quote was from the clay-mation classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. After that, we put on Santa hats, linked our arms around each other, and stood still as we sang "Deck the Hars with Bors of Horry" a cappella from A Christmas Story.

The next quote was from A Charlie Brown Christmas. The audience aced every single quote, which amazed me! We tried to get a variety of Christmas movies spanning multiple generations to hopefully appeal to everyone in the audience, but at one point, one of the older gentlemen called out "Can you do a western? I don't know ANY of these Christmas ones!". We put on lei necklaces next, and swayed as we sang "Mele Malikimaka" from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation.

The last quote was "It came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes, or bags" which a super obvious one from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Then we ended the show by wearing our feather boas, and singing and dancing to the song "Sisters" that we'd won Salmon Idol with. It fit perfectly into the program since it's from the movie White Christmas!  The funny thing was, as soon as we were done singing, one of the ladies in the audience said "Now can you do the song that you did at Salmon Idol, because I missed it?". And I was like "We just did".

I'm grateful for rare opportunities like this to perform--it's one of my passions and I enjoy it immensely! Especially when I get to do it with my friend Amanda because we have so much fun together! And having the chance to do it that night after having a painful day, was such a true blessing!