Advent Calendar- Christmas at School

December and the last month of school are the must fun for kids. Those two months are always brimming with excitement. At Christmas time the halls are decorated, you can hear children singing carols from their classrooms, and the teacher's are wearing their Christmas sweaters. All seems so merry and bright.

As an adult working in the school system I love December, we get out two weeks early and everyone is in a festive mood. I felt the same way as a child, except one year. The year my class was chosen to put on the Christmas pageant at school. I was a shy quiet kid. I did not want to be in the spotlight at all. Thankfully Mrs. Nobles, my teacher, put me in the background as one of the chorus members. We had to sing between acts. Except as we sang we had to perform hand movements that went along with the songs. I can still remember them. Everyday I stood there practicing, scared out of my wits about all those people looking at me. On the day of the play, I had myself so worked up that I came down with a migraine and they had to call my mother to come get me. So, I did not have to perform after all. I was not faking it, I suffered from migraine headaches and still do so today. Stress often brings them on. It was the last day of school before getting out for the Christmas holiday's so I did not get to partake in my class party or anything.

My mother had the honor of performing in her high school Nativity. She was chosen to be the Blessed Mother and her infant cousin was the baby Jesus. She had a photograph of her kneeling before the manger with Joseph that we used to love to look at when I was growing up. The local paper had taken it she said. Later years when I was doing research I came across the very same photo in the newspaper with an article about the Nativity play.

This is the sixteenth blog in the series by GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2012.