Christmas with the kids

Ahhh the week before school lets out for Christmas break is CRAZY even in Japan...I tried to fill the time with Christmas books, activities, and even crafts...and a little bit of work of course :) Overall it was a crazy week and I'm going to use all of vacation to recover! We had our class party on Thursday afternoon...we had lunch with the parents, pot luck style. FYI, Kentucky Fried Chicken is REALLY popular for the holidays...and VERY different than the States, it's actually really good...who knew? Anyway, lunch, then we did a reader's theater, complete with songs (had to get my drama out somehow!) and then we finished off with The Legend of the Candy Cane and we made these candy cane ornaments, cute, fun....TIRING!
Reader's Theater...the parents are following along with their Japanese translation for easy understanding :)

The food line...PLENTY to eat!
The first-10th grade did a program called Christmas All Over the World (Adrienne's campus did a traditional Christmas nativity/poem/songs) The whole thing was very different to what I'm used to...didn't really like being in the wings, but a time and a place for everything. Anyway, the costumes were nice that the kids brought in - my class was from Africa, each class was a different country and did a little speaking on Christmas in their country and a song, a nice way to showcase each class, but I still like when they're in it the whole time...the sound is just so much better. Lisa and Sarah - the auditorium is drool worthy :)

My kids at dress rehearsal practicing who gets the microphones
We're waiting to go on stage again!
At the end of our song Lion of Judah...check out the background lights...they change!! There's even an ACTUAL pulley system...not some scary PVC tubing and ropes...so high class!
We had to wait for our ride outside
Some of my kids in the DRESSING ROOM....wow
Carolyn and I



Group 2 in the dressing room - 3rd grade was from Japan, 5th was from Eastern Europe, 1st the Caribbean, and no one is from 4th in the picture, but they were from Australia
Everybody out on stage

Sarah, this is just for you....I spent the whole time thinking of what kind of damage we could do with the headsets, the scrim, the lights, the monitors...it was a perfect Alirah Hammersma playground...wish you were here to cause a little chaos with me :)