The Never Ending Christmas Pageant

William's Japanese school, Seika Yochien, put on it's 61st annual Christmas Pageant last week. This was our first pageant with William in it, so we were very excited. Caroline carried out the required task of finding brown tights and sweater for William for his part of the pageant. We were told to be there with William in his seat 45 minutes before the scheduled start. We were a bit late since there were about 5 families at the base taxi stand all going to Seika for the Pageant and the off base taxis were coming only one every few minutes. We eventually got there and took our place in the auditorium. Specifically, William sat in his assigned seat and Caroline and I stood along the wall and the back. It was a bit crowded.

The program was a one pager with two parts. We figured it would take 2 hours tops. We apparently haven't fully appreciated the Japanese tradition of long and respectful opening ceremonies where many important people get up to speak and get recognized. This portion took about an hour and a half. Then there was the actual Pageant where each class provided a dance or drama. One of the classes did the entire Birth of Christ story with about 12 scene changes with each student having a speaking role in each scene. Then each of the major age groups put on a short musical concert. Then, closing ceremonies... It took a grand total of 4 and a half hours! We hadn't planned for that. Caroline noticed as she was helping William get on his costume that the other mothers had snacks (if not meals) for their kids as they dressed them. William got a snack of candy, cough drops and pocket lint... We'll be more prepared next time.

I've combined one of William's classes concert videos with his dance routine. To help spot him, he is the blond haired drummer in the back right and the blond haired brown bear. We'd honestly expected William to be playing the melodian (air blown keyboard) since he'd been practicing at home. He's been in drum lessons for a few weeks, but we figured that was preparation for next year. What cracks me up, are the key boards with the megaphone underneath that you can kinda see in the front row. They are serious about having their music heard in Japan.