My Holiday Spirit

My niece and nephews attend a private school in Minneapolis that is blessed with an amazing Arts Department. Each year, the entire school takes part in the Christmas program. Usually each grade chooses a country to study all year, and dress like that country's citizens at various school events during the year - bazaars, festivals and the Christmas program. My nephew Danny blew me away last year by reciting more facts about Madagascar than are on the State Department's Madagascar website. Since this year is the 150th anniversary of Minnesota becoming a state, each grade chose a region and an era of Minnesota history to study this year.

So Danny is an Iron Range miner:

And Julia is an Arrowhead voyageur:
And John is a swell from St. Paul during the Fitzgerald era:
They sing songs I would not have imagined appropriate to a Christmas program, but some how they fit into the reenactment of the Christmas story - even Spirit in the Sky, Jingle Bell Rock, You Keep A Knockin', Proud Mary, Sixteen Tons (I'm not making this up) and Climb Every Mountain.

Every year the first graders are exempted from the geography lesson, and instead portray shepherds, barnyard animals, Mary, Joseph and the angel:

And at the end, they sing Kermit's Christmas Wish, and even humbug aunties cry:
Kermit's Christmas Wish

I don't know if you believe in Christmas
Or if you have presents underneath the Christmas tree
But if you believe in love
That will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me

For I have held the precious gift that love brings
Even though I never saw a Christmas star
I know there is a light
I have felt it burn inside
And I have seen it shining from afar

Christmas is the time to come together
A time to put all differences aside

And I reach out my hand
To the family of Man
To share the joy I feel at Christmas time

For the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
That at this special time
You will have true peace of mind
And love to last throughout the coming year

And if you believe in love
That will be more than enough
For peace to last throughout the coming year
And peace on earth will last throughout the year