Christmas Spectacular 2022

This morning Maddie discovered that Jingle and Snowflake were having a fun time - in a Christmas ball pit!  It was under the tree, and honestly looked like a lot of fun!

So today were the final performances of our Christmas Production this year, and it all went very well, although it was a tremendously long day of course.  We were so tired, and I've been painted gold so many times with glitter - it's really not a fun thing.  Especially when it gets in the eyes.  But it's been an honor to be a Wise Man and be part of this production.  Mom, of course, did a lot with props and costuming.  I was coordinating with the animals too, which was great because I got to bring Maddie down around the back to meet the sheep, the donkey, and the camel too.  But one unexpected visit was with Santa!

I was somewhat bummed that we didn't get our Santa picture this year, as I like to have one each year in a special frame and have that picture up on the bookshelves each year, a growing collection of course with a new one each year.  So with just a week to go, we still hadn't had a Santa picture this year.  But as you can see above, we found favor - the church had arranged a Santa in a display area, and just before the service started, Maddie met with Santa and we got a great photo!

You can see the window in the front there, the one with the words "Christmas at Free Chapel" on it.  There wasn't really any line at this point, because people were anxious to get inside and hold their seats for the last production.

So we got a few good pictures of Maddie with Santa for this year.  Right away, I'm going to look for frames to use so we can add one of these to the book shelf.

Maybe not this one though.  Although it's funny that there's this random gold Wise Man there with Santa and Maddie.  A friend insisted I join the picture because it would be fun, so there I am.

As for the production, all three went well.  You can see some more of the church's official pictures here below:

I did enjoy being one of the Wise Men, but again the paint was pretty awful.  The glitter was worse.  I still have it on me now.  But the production itself was fantastic, and tonight's numbers for the last performance were something like 5300 people, of course many of them in overflow.  Just before the show, Maddie got to meet Obediah the camel.

And then she went back to her seat quickly to enjoy the production.  These are some of her pictures from tonight's performance:

And here are a few pictures afterwards, of Mom and myself on stage:

Maddie got to meet some other familiar friends too - including Cottontop the sheep.  He was here last year, and he's quite affectionate.  Maddie and he hit it off right away!

And afterwards, she was saying hello to Minnie the donkey too!

It was a great day.  It's getting cold out there though!  But the performances were well received and we felt very good about our efforts.  It's a tremendous team, and we're happy to play our part in all of it.  In the end, Pastor's message about Jesus was effective, tied to our production, and producing a lot of good fruit - a lot of hands raised and people receiving the message of Christmas.  

We got home and... well, it was late.  It's time for bed!  We did do some reading, and we said our prayers, and it didn't take long at all for me to be out cold!