Shepherd, good. Sheep, baa-aa-aad.

(Lisa's going to get tired of seeing her E-mails reenacted here, but at least in this case it's only the one line, not the whole story...)

The girls had their school-Christmas-pageant-slash-kindergarten-graduation on Tuesday.

Julia was a shepherd. I love shepherds. Well, shepherd costumes. They are without a doubt the easiest thing children are ever asked to dress up as. Sheep, on the other hand...

We were told at a parents' meeting weeks ago that the art teacher would tell the children how to make a sheep costume, but by the day before the pageant (and four days after the last day of school) I figured we were probably on our own.

We tried a couple of things (including our patience) and ended up with a homebrewed wrap-em-in-batting solution. Robin liked it, which was the main thing, but I have some regrets. (One is forgetting to have her take off the long-sleeved outer shirt which, while white, had a flower on the front that showed above the sheeply garb.)

I learned something when we got there. The pageant part is called a posada, which I took to mean "posed," as in a living nativity scene. Turns out that an inn is sometimes called a posada(which I guess I knew) and the activity started with Joseph and Mary (aka José & María) and about half the others outside the open doors of the community center and the other half inside. There was a song-dialogue in which those outside asked for entry, which they were initially denied and eventually granted.

Once inside, they did do the living nativity scene, with a few spoken lines, then stayed in their positions to sing two carols.

Here are my camera's best efforts...

The three sheep are seated on the left; Robin is the one on the right. The shepherds are behind them; Julia is the one in red (very dark in this picture) behind the middle sheep.

The group includes both pre-K and kindergarteners. After the carols, the nine graduating kindergarteners left the room and came back in one by one when their names were called.

Each one was given a country-style painted wooden angel to remind them that there are unseen things that are as real as what is seen, and that there is something larger out there that is on their side. (Okay, I'm not only translating but paraphrasing liberally, but that was the general idea.)

They also each got a paintbrush from the art teacher, a certificate and a few private words from the principal (who is also one of their teaches).

They posed with some of the teachers & staff (by which time Robin had been freed of her wrappings)

Past a shepherd's bedtime: