Another Victorian Christmas

Busy day!  Long day!  Crowded day!  We started out with Jingle Bell trying to make a disguise for himself.  Madison found the clue and knew he was probably in the sewing room, which is exactly where he was, alongside Queen Amidala.

But we had a service to go to today, and it was the start of our "All Aboard" series, complete with that same train, and Christmas lights as well.  Daddy was dressed as a conductor this time, and we had a great time with a mad-lib skit, along with a message about Jesus having paid the price for our ticket.

We showed a few older KPTV videos from the last time we did this train-themed series, but then we also did a classic skit, one we haven't done in quite some time.  It was super popular back then, and it was a big hit this morning... twice, for both services!

You can see Nerdo here, ready to go "toot, toot!"  And the kids in the audience know very well that this is the sort of thing that you don't want Nerdo doing...!

As soon as we were done at KidPak, we made space in our cramped Sunday schedule to do something that was super fun last year, and again it was a lot of fun this year.  We went to the Northeast Georgia History Center for their Victorian Christmas celebration.  Part of that was the opportunity to have your picture taken with Santa!

Daddy took a few of these pictures, and here's a closer shot that he also took:

But they also take the pictures there too, with a photographer set up, lighting and a printer as well:  this beats a visit to the mall by a long shot!  Madison spent a bit of time taking to the gentleman, and on top of that, they printed out a free Santa picture for us as a souvenir.

Yes, this is our official "visit with Santa" picture for the year.  This one above is the one they sent a digital copy of.  I took the ones above this one because I didn't know they'd be sharing a digital version.  In the past, they gave us a print-out, which was pretty amazing by itself.  But now they're also giving us digital copies, and that's just above and beyond.  It was fun!  Santa even asked us all to pose together as a family, which we were happy to do!

If this were the only thing we dropped by to do, then it would have been a nice afternoon trip away.  But there is so much more to do at these events, and the next part involved a visit with some friends we see each time they come to the center:

The Atlanta Historic Dance group came to do a few dances with us, but also there was a reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas."  Additionally, there was a bit of a discussion as to how we all started putting Christmas trees in our houses, as it relates to Queen Victoria's husband, and also similarly, why we send Christmas cards as well.  A young lady sang "Oh Holy Night," and after that we all were passed various percussion instruments to use as everyone in the room sang an old Christmas song, "Jingle Bells."  This was the first recorded Christmas song on an album, although the original copy has long since disappeared.

Anyway, on to the dancing.  There were some demonstrations of a few more complex dances, which looked like a lot of fun.  Of course, these were traditional dances done at the time of Queen Victoria.  She was on the throne a long time, of course.  Queen Elizabeth has her beat with longevity at this point, but the point is that clothing styles varied quite a bit through the several decades of her reign.

The dancers had a good time, but Madison was ready to join in on the fun.  That she did very quickly, jumping up to join everyone in a Carolina Promenade.

The dance was explained, step by step, and Madison remembered this one from a previous visit with the dancers.  Still, there was a bit of catching up to do, and of course others in the room had no idea what they were doing at first.

But of course everyone caught on rather well, and soon enough there was a lot of mirth and merriment.  That just seemed like a Victorian thing to say.  

Madison enjoyed this so much, she went back to the second session of dancing, for there were two different sessions this afternoon, one earlier and one later.  We did the first, and then went on to do other things that we will talk about shortly, and then came back again just to do the dancing once more.  By this point, Madison is an expert on the Carolina Promenade, explaining to us on the car ride afterwards how to do it step by step.

Daddy was taking a lot of pictures.  In fact, each time I do take pictures of the group, I send them off to the person who organizes this team of dancers, and she shares those photos on her social media sites as well.

When all was done, the dancers bow and curtsey to their partners - and everyone celebrates.  It's a fun time for everyone!

We first saw this group at the Wren's Nest a few years ago, and were surprised to see several dancers here in Gainesville as well.  It's always fun to see them!

Madison was dipping her pen into the inkwell for some fancy writing after this, making Christmas cards that we might send off a bit later.   And here's a neat thing that she made:

Christmas crackers!  She made her own Christmas cracker, including that little strip of paper that makes the thing "POP!"  She put a present inside, and made a nice looking present for somebody this year.

We did a few other things at the center, but this one was a fun moment where we spent a rather long time attempting to catch a wooden ball on basically a slightly large golf tee.

The lady that ran the main desk came over to try it, telling us she succeeded once earlier, and that was enough to send us into a frenzy, all of us tossing this ball on a string in the air in hopes of catching it perfectly balanced.  Look who managed to do it first!

Madison used a similar toy with a larger cup to catch the ball, and soon enough, she was successful too.  Here she is posing with one of the museum's workers, who also caught the ball as well.

This was a bit of fun!  We were looking in the museum's gift shop for this very toy, but could not find it.  That would have made a great souvenir.

Anyway, we left there, and I told you it was a busy day.  We had about three hours of play practice after this!  Yes, we were off to the church, and it was on the big stage that we practiced tonight, going through placement and blocking on a much larger main sanctuary stage.

It was fun!  We made a lot of progress tonight, running through placement and lines and even movement across the stage.  Madison stayed in character, and was doing very well with the role of Mei-Mei.

It was a productive night, and there aren't many of these practices left before the actual production itself.  That being said, the next few practices are no doubt going to be a lot longer!

Still, the kids are enjoying them quite a bit, and on top of that, they are doing rather well.  They practice and focus and listen attentively, and they even get some breaks - you can see Madison here posing at our Santa throne upstairs.

 All the kids were posing one by one, and cutting up with laughter and chases and jokes.  But then it was all seriousness as they were back to the stage again.  Okay, mostly all seriousness.

We got home after this, and as you can imagine, we were quite tired.  We watched "Prep and Landing," and started a new book, "Prince Caspian" tonight, along with the new devotional for "All Aboard."  We weren't up too much longer after play practice - we were all quite tired.

It was a great day though, a full one and a fun one!