More Gravy Than Grave

This happened tonight: Laura as Jacob Marley in the school production of A Christmas Carol. I don't know if anyone has ever played the role with more relish. Certainly no ten year-old girl has. Her Marley was just a little too happy to be wearing the chains he forged in life, and she brought a refreshingly brisk impatience to her exchange with Scrooge. Like, "Okay, dude, lemme break it down for you. You're gonna be visited by three ghosts. No, three besides me. Try to stop talking for a second. This is important." She speaks well, though. And of course I thought she was the best one, NATURALLY.

The whole performance made me think of this David Sedaris piece from Holidays on Ice. 

Although the program listed no director, the apathetic staging suggested the limp, partially paralyzed hand of Sister Mary Elizabeth Bronson, who should have been excommunicated after last season's disastrous Thanksgiving program.

and

Once again, the sadists at the Jane Snow-Hernandez Middle School have taken up their burning pokers in an attempt to prod A Christmas Carol into some form of submission. I might have overlooked the shoddy production values and dry, leaden pacing, but these are sixth-graders we're talking about and they should have known better.

Laura asked us what our favorite part of the play was, and I told her it was when she first said, "SCROOGE!" from offstage. It was startling! And then she was clinking her chains. Jacob Marley gets a fine entrance.

She wore a pirate shirt from my old Halloween costume, a Mrs. Claus wig we bought at Party City today, and some dog chain my dad procured from the hardware store. She also gave great thought to the single, torn sock she wore. She wondered whether to rip the toe entirely off or leave it dangling. She decided that partially attached was more suitable to her vision of the character.

The girl doesn't have a nervous bone in her body. After the curtain calls, another mom came up to me and said, "If you could just get the child out of her shell a little." And Matt was like, "She's related to me how?"

Hank needed to tell how, at school today, they acted out the first Christmas in Chapel, and he got to be one of the Wise Men, the one with the gold, and there was no gold in the box but they pretended, and he got to wear a purple shirt and a purple sash, and it was very exciting because another Wise Man was the darling Annabelle, whom he loves.

So neither child is hiding any lights under bushels.

I hope you are all feeling festive out there.