Pageantry

I didn't want to go.

I know you will think I'm a Scrooge and I will tell you that I am.  I don't like things for children in the evening. My kids go upstairs at 6:30.  By 7:00 they are marginally scrubbed, PJed, brushed, read to, sang several lullabies and in their adorable matching toddler beds listening to music.  One CD.  When it ends and the dulcet strains of Big Bird fade, they are usually all asleep

I didn't want to go.  It was all so complicated.  I needed a sitter because Matt had picked up a shift until 10:00 p.m. and my friend was having a party and I was tired and it started at 7:00 p.m. and did I mention that I don't do kids after 7:00 p.m.?  But I pushed through.  I rallied and fed them and sent Saige and Garrett upstairs to get dressed. It was pajama day at school and they both still wore their fuzzy, footed pajamas at dinner time.  The sitter came.  Nate screamed like she regularly pinches him and clung to my leg.  I pried him off while giving her the complicated rundown.  I hope to have the big kids home by 8:30, my friend Kayla, you know Kayla? She's going to bring her little boy over around 7:30, but Nate and Quinn should be asleep by then and you already talked to her right?  And then I'll go to the party for a bit.  Kayla said she'd pick up Leo by nine.  I might be late, but Matt will be home by ten.  Is that okay?

Nate still screamed.  Kelsey, our sitter, our second Kelsey in a run of adored Kelseys begged me to just leave with her eyes.  Shut up and go.  I know how to do it.

She does. Thank god.  I ran upstairs and herded Saige and Garrett down in their jeans and t-shirts. Garrett had marker all over his face.  Saige's shirt had some sort of permanent white stain down the side.   The ghost of Christmas Amy touched my shoulder and I pictured the children at her Christmas Eve party last year in their angel dresses with red satin and white lace and their sweater vests and ties and something told my little pagan soul that this was not quite right.  This was not quite right for a Christmas pageant in a huge Presbyterian church with three grades of excited students and 300 beaming parents and grandparents.

I almost threw in the towel then. I won't go, I thought, but they were so excited.  They'll go like this, dammit, but something stopped me and I herded them back upstairs and fished last year's Costco Christmas dress and a two-year-old wedding sweater vest out of the closet.  Dressed, scrubbed, ready, we headed back for the car.  At the last minute, I met Quinn's forlorn little eyes at the bottom of the stairs and I caved completely.

Do you want to come with us?  The child radiated happiness.  He broke his neck nodding.

So. Great then.  NOW I was paying a very wonderful, very worth it, very expensive sitter to put my baby to bed (which involves handing him a bottle and laying him down) and watch TV while she waited for my friend to bring her child so that we could all go to a party, but not until I survived this whole Christmas pageant thing.

The sanctuary glowed. Its wood polished, lighted and pine-boughed for Christmas. It's been years since I was in a church in this season. We all rustled in our finery, sitting in the pews, facing the empty risers.  Well, most rustled in their finery, I didn't quite make it out of my jeans.  My nice jeans. Quinn held my hand and twisted his neck from side to side between the magnificent floor-to-ceiling organ and trying to see Saige and Garrett.

It was peaceful, that slight pause before the pageant, surrounded by people waiting, cameras poised, for a glimpse of their sweet kids.  Peaceful and pretty and Christmasy.  I felt like a grown-up.  A grown-up parent. I'm not sure if I've sat in a pew waiting for carols to begin since I was a little girl in an itchy, petticoated dress of my own.  I'd forgotten the anticipation.

They came down the center aisle, all in a row, so proud with their peacock feathers spread, stepping carefully into their places on the stage. (I said a quiet prayer of thanks to God and Amy for my own small miracle because you should have seen the angel dresses and the ties.   My children blended right in.  You couldn't even see from the pews that most of the sequins had fallen off of Saige's dress).  They sang Go Tell It On The Mountain and We Wish You A Merry Christmas and Silent Night.

I cried a little to see my Kindergartners.  My Kindergartners.  Up there on the risers.  They knew every word and every hand motion.  I was so glad that we went.

It ended and Garrett shattered the stillness by blaring, "Mommy!  EXCUSE ME MOMMY!"  from the risers.  I raised my finger carefully to my lips, which I bit to keep from laughing out loud.

"Garrett what on earth did you need to tell me when you were up on stage?" I asked him in the van.  That you loved me?  That you were so proud to sing for Quinn and I?

"I wanted to know if you had my coat," he said around a huge mouthful of sugar cookie.

Uh huh.  Even if I am a human coat rack, I'm still so very glad we went.  And I am glad for parties with wine and no children.