Immigration Day

This was a pretty full day, all started out with our elf doing his own version of "The Voice."  It's a show that Madison has never seen, and to be fair, neither had we.  It's been sort of a pop culture thing, akin to "American Idol" or "America's Got Talent."  The judges to the right sit in these swivel chairs that face away from the singer, and only when they're convinced the singer has enough talent to move on, they turn to face the contestant.  So far, Jingle Bell has two judges on his side!

We saw one of these contestants - actually a show winner - when we went to see the Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith concert a few weeks ago.  Jordan Smith was simply amazing.  He did a few songs, including "Mr. Grinch," "O Holy Night," and "All is Well."  His voice is amazing.

This morning, Daddy went to school with Madison to take pictures for the yearbook, accompanying the fifth graders with their "Immigration Day."

You can see a few of the immigrants here, ready to sail off to Ellis Island.  A lot of the kids were dressed up in outfits from over a hundred years ago.  The guys carried old suitcases, wore ties, or old caps.  The girls came dressed in various outfits like you see above.

Everyone started out with a passport, of course.  This would have to be checked initially, and then there would be questioning at various stations.

It was all very serious here, as the interviewers were quite intent on learning about each immigrant, and why they were coming to America.  This one here is asking Madison - or Astrid - why she is coming to the United States.  Astrid is looking for her husband, who came here about five years ago.  She hasn't heard from him in over a year, and so she's off in search of him.  Hopefully that will work out.

In the meantime, here she is on one of the very many lines at our virtual Ellis Island.  One thing that was pretty fun was the "boat" the kids took from their classrooms.  Each class had a long piece of brown boat-shaped paper that they carried outside, and around down the hall.  Here's Madison "on board" her little boat:

Here's the entire class onboard the "S.S. Reed."  That's their teacher's name, of course.

They knew they were getting close when they passed by the Statue of Liberty, which was one of their assistant principals, dressed up, and holding her arm upwards for a really long time!

Though it was a lot of fun for the kids, it was also a very educational sort of day.  The adults really got into the act.  One running joke was that various teachers alongside the wall couldn't understand what these kids were asking, because they only spoke English.  See, Madison is from Scandinavia, and therefore wasn't speaking English.

Kids that were talking were promptly sent to the back of these very big lines, which was just enough punishment to keep everyone in line.  So to speak.  But they went through all the same processes, largely, of immigration, including the medical check-up:

Madison did well with this, although some others did not.  Nurses used flashlights and tongue depressors to give these hopeful citizens a proper check-up before allowing them into the country.  Madison did well here, and then had herself yet another test:  the citizenship test.

These were done on laptops, which must have been available in 1900, right?  Madison passed her citizenship test the first try, which made Daddy proud.  Next came the oath of citizenship.  A lot of the kids were lined up for this in the library, as one teacher led them through the entire oath.

And there you have it!  Most of the kids got their citizenship, so there was time to celebrate.  Why not have a Christmas party in the classroom?  

Mommy had donated sprinkles and other items, and back in the classroom we had an Italian Christmas party, although hot chocolate bars and cookie decorating stations are probably more universal.  Still, it was a sugar rush of a time there, and the kids were enjoying it.  It was a nice way to end 2017 in the class.

When Madison got home, we weren't done with the adventures for the day yet.  It was finally time to go see that movie.  What movie?  This one:

We saw "Star Wars:  The Last Jedi" this afternoon, meeting a few friends in the Gainesville theater, and watching it together.  Madison and Daddy liked it, although Mommy was a little iffy on it. The new characters were a lot of fun, including a new Asian character named Rose.

She actually plays a bigger part, and not a cameo as other roles tend to be.  In fact, the other roles that we've seen a lot of on commercials - Captain Phasma and BB-9E - are pretty much just cameos.  We were expecting a greater role from these two, simply based on all the commercials for this movie.

But ultimately, it was about these two:

We're going to miss these characters.  Although we're glad they were back for any period at all, it's sort of time to say goodbye.  That seems to be the theme of the movie, "letting go of the past, and moving on to the next generation."  This might be Disney's next big theme for 2017-2018, as this one and "Cars 3" seem to have the same general idea.

As far as details go, we'll leave spoilers for later.  But Madison enjoyed the movie, and it was nice to see it with friends too.  The movie is controversial for some Star Wars fans, but we didn't think too much of certain plot points to let the experience be a bad one.  It was a fun time, and it's always great to see the Millennium Falcon soaring through the air.

We got home after that, and honestly, we were all pretty tired.  It was time for bed not long afterwards.  We had dinner, read from the devotional and the "Nutcracker," and soon after that, it was time for bed, with visions of space battles in our heads.