2018 Week 50: Christmas Programs

The week began with a worshipful Advent cantata at church.

In the afternoon we went to Kayla's end-of-semester dance recital of her multiple classes.

Rebecca was in three of them. She seems to prefer tap.

Early Hip Hop Jazz (left top); Early Ballet (left bottom); Early Tap (right)

Monday evening was Delta's Middle School and high School band concert at Emmens. Unfortunately from our position on the right side of the auditorium, we couldn't see our handsome 8th-grade trumpet-player, grandson Elijah.

Wednesday was our tap group's last performance for the year, at the Upland Senior Activities Center.

The Dancing Divas

We had fun painting tiles again in our Thursday Art Club. This time we copied some snowmen figures from a placemat I took from my visit with Mother last week.

Favorite Christmas decorations have been showing up all week. Small Nativities replaced the turtle collection on the kitchen windowsill--Leah's clay set, complete with tiny gifts for each of the Magi (left); a teeny tiny one from Mexico (middle); and the cutest figures from Northern Argentina.

Michael helped set up all three Christmas trees stored away in the attic. 

One of my favorite Christmas-tree related photos shows how Stephan and Karen get theirs.

It was the last week of the semester for our resident student--the dreaded finals week. We rarely saw her. In fact she pulled a couple all-nighters and finally surfaced Friday. One of her engineering friends came over as well to get some shut-eye before the long trip home. 

Elaine and Moriah--in one of her rare resting-postures

It took all day Saturday for Moriah to finally rise, sort, pack, clean and eventually make her way home all the way to Muncie. We were grateful for the extra time to hang-out--a whole semester's worth of visiting!

The programs continued. Sunday, the 16th, children sang and acted out the Christmas story in churches around. And yesterday, was the second Monday we made our way to the huge Ball State University auditorium for yet another musical presentation--Royerton Elementary (Zion and Jude, 3rd grade and Kindergarten). The noticeable difference was that the content was entirely secular with no mention of the true Christmas story--Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus Christ born to live among us.