Spectacular Finish

 

Jingle Bell started off the morning today with a bad Star Wars joke, some of Jabba's court, SOLO cups, and a new ornament - a Jabba's Sail Barge!  That will look great hanging upon our Star Wars tree.  We'll have to post pictures of that later.  Maddie took a few more snaps this  morning of her advent calendars, that is, when she woke up. 

Christmas is almost here!  And to celebrate, of course we were at church today to do three more presentations of our Christmas Spectacular.  This morning we had to arrive pretty early, but we were ready, and sure enough, so was our audience.  It was in overflow again, with so many people there to see the show.  We were out of room!

I was King Herod once again, and Josh was just wonderful as Joseph.  The entire crew has been amazing, really coming together for an unforgettable performance, one that will be difficult to top.  You just sit there at the end as you're taking a bow, and watching the standing ovation from a packed house with such gratitude for the experience.  Being the writer of this program added an extra bit of gratitude.  It's been wonderful just taking in the atmosphere and relishing the part we got to play in it.

Here are some pictures from the morning presentations, including this first screen capture of King Herod, portrayed by yours truly:

Okay, what's with the sheep's butt?

Steps... now with fog!

It was a great afternoon meeting with the animal handlers and Obediah the camel, plus the sheep and donkey handlers as well.  And the fire dancers and aerialists were good people too.  We ate some food from the Free Chapel cafeteria upstairs, and just hung out here, never leaving - as the parking situation is crazy out there.  We just rested here, watching "Emmett Otter" with Josh, and even watching the William Wegmen Christmas special from a few years ago.  I have this VHS player here, and we've been watching several of those specials on VHS these past few days.  

But soon enough, it was time for our final presentation, and everyone got ready.  We have a pretty large group involved in this:  dancers, aerialists, singers, characters, backstage workers.  It's a large group, and we were in our places, ready for the start.

It was an epic day, and a long one too.  We got home afterwards, after quite a bit of clean-up, and Maddie was at home most of the day studying and cleaning up some.  We watched a few short Christmas specials (Merry Madagascar, Toy Story) and then were pretty ready for bed, exhausted.  We read a short portion of "I Shall Wear Midnight" and then said our prayers... and then it was off to bed.