Merry Christmas!

Margaret took part in her first Christmas pageant today at daycare. For the past few weeks, she's blasted out tortured versions of "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Often, she has sung them while we're walking home. She has especially liked to yell "Hah, hah, hah" after the line "Used to laugh and call him names" in the Rudolph song. And she has enthusiastically yelped "Hey!" at the end of the line "One horse open sleigh" in "Jingle Bells."

People that we've passed on the street have seemed to think it's funny, especially since Margaret has been sitting in the bottom seat of the stroller lately so they haven't been able to see the source of the little voice spouting these songs until they've passed us. But it's been like a broken record for me, although it does keep her from moaning, another favorite pastime during the walk home.

In any case, Margaret was very excited about the show. Once they came out to perform and she spotted us, however, she collapsed into tears. One of those "I'm a baby girl" episodes that she's exhibited lately. It took a while to get her back with the group, but we eventually managed to do so, and she was happy enough once we did. Funny thing but, after all of the practice in the stroller and at home, Margaret appeared to forget the words when the time came to perform. She couldn't even really manage a "Hah, hah, hah" or a "Hey!" at the appropriate points. But we couldn't really fault her as all of the other kids seemed to suffer from similar stage fright.