Spectacular Practice

 

Last night there was one more pumpkin carved in the season.  We had one extra pumpkin that never got around to being carved, so it looks like Jingle Bell had some fun with some late season carving.  There's green paint on there for the tree, and some actual Christmas lights inside the pumpkin too, the battery-powered kind.  To add to the whole thing, Jack Skellington is there in a Santa outfit with Zero nearby, with all of them resting on a nice ground covering of snow.  

Tonight was our final practice.  It was crazy, at one point I was racing over to pick up Maddie from taekwondo while dressed as a shepherd.  I walked into the martial arts studio as a shepherd to pick her up from practice, then sped back to the church while the production was ongoing and got back just in time to gather up the sheep, the shepherds, and get out for our portion of the service.  There was a lot of running around tonight - and throw in the fact that there was a dense fog warning along with some terrible weather out there.  Tonight those terrible thunderstorms were much worse farther north of us, with tornadoes and violence just devastating communities.  That same system is producing something weaker for us here tomorrow, but we'll have to keep an eye on it.

Mom has been so incredible throughout this entire production.  The Wise Men costumes are looking fantastic.  Today we were down in Gwinnett County going through an indoor mall that had nothing but merchandise from India.  The food court had Indian food too, giving off a smell of food that I wished I could stop to enjoy a little more.  It filled the entire mall area, in fact, occasionally combining with other smells that reminded me of our trip to China some time ago.  We were there to get some shoes for our Wise Men, and we were hoping we wouldn't have to drive further south into Atlanta for that - and fortunately, we didn't!  We found three sets of perfect shoes, ones fit for royalty, and completing our ensemble of Wise Men.  Having found success and saving that time, we then drove down a bit to a yearly tradition, the British Import shop in Norcross.  Firstly, to say that parking in Norcross is a miserable experience is an understatement.  There is nowhere near enough parking.  There were cars like me circling time and again.  I went around city blocks seven times before I finally found a person backing out of their spot about three blocks away from where it was we wanted to go.  Fortunately, I was able to drop Mom and Nana off at the store, and they got to enjoy some extra time there.  I showed up in time to get some ginger beer, and I was so happy to see there were a lot of great products there that we're going to enjoy at Christmas, including mince pies and Christmas pudding.  Even greater news was that there was gluten-free Christmas pudding!  We got some Quality Street packages with chocolate and candy, and we got some Crunchie Bars too, of course.  There were a lot of goodies there!

We got out of there and got back in time to get me off to the office, and for Maddie to have someone there for her when she got home from school.  And it was off to the races after that, getting things set up with further costuming - shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, angels, dancers, and more.  Mom is doing so much this season!  

Tonight's practice went super late of course.  We were moving around animals, costumes, fire jugglers, acrobats... the videos are done, and it's cool they got a professional voiceover person to do the words that I actually wrote.  We're all doing so many different things all at the same time, but it's all coming together.  Our neighbor Dawn brought in her dance team, and they're doing a fantastic job with such energy and joy. Everyone seems happy with the end product - we have some extra things to do tomorrow, but not the late night.  It's a good thing, as we have to get up at something like 4:30 to get there.

We didn't read much tonight, but we did.  And we prayed, and then it didn't take too much time for everyone to fall asleep.