Come reminisce with me, internets. In this post, we talk about the awkwardly-choreographed Christmas plays we were drafted into in elementary school.
I’ve mentioned several times before that mine (West Heritage) was a particularly weird place, and by golly the seasonal plays were nooooo exception. I only remember a couple of them in any real detail, but if you would indulge me a bit to speak on the WTF, the sometimes-awesome and how none of this would ever, EVER fly today.
2nd grade: If I recall correctly, the theme behind this one was “Christmas around the world.” Actually, I think that was the theme behind how my class approached the holidays as a whole, lots of emphasis on Christmas in non-American cultures. (Particularly, St. Lucy’s Day) But as for the play itself, I believe it was strictly a musical thing, with the kids rotated into parade decorated snowflakes highlighting the region. That year, my noobish tongue would master the pronunciation of Puerto Vallarta and Matzatlan, dammit, since that was the portion of the lyrics I was assigned.
Oh man, and there was actually making the snowflakes that we’d carry onstage. I’ll tell you, glue, glitter and I NEVER got along. I’d always get that stuff all over my hands. I remember my snowflake looked the worst, since the glue binding the silver glitter dribbled all over. Bah!
3rd grade: Oh man, if there was the year of the bizarre Christmas play, this was it. Jumping jeebus cripes, my teachers (main + student/apprentice, who would later join the school as a full-time teacher at 5th grade) wrote these over-the-top plays that almost involve themselves being kidnapped by “Bad Guys” and…. yeah, you could smell the ham from a mile off. This one actually had some sense of a story, with the scenes being partitioned off with musical transitions. And even those were all over the map– the tape with the musical accompaniement was a smattering of crappy MIDI keyboard, recordings of the school piano, and old-school “pop” holiday stuff (“Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree”).
This one was about “The Magic Word for Christmas.” Its titular song… I don’t know if it was an original composition or what. Holy crap it’s definitely something Flonne would sing, though. “The Magic Word for Christmas is L-O-V-E, love~” or something. XD
oh geeze, part of me now wants to do a Disgaea-themed recreation of this, with Prinnies as the chorus… I should put such a horrible thought out of my mind before it goes anywhere. >_>;
Because there was an actual story with characters and such, and because this was third grade, the teachers got to pick who got to play what. Oh boy… you can bet any notion of being unbiased went out the window, and quickly. The most popular (and not necessarily most well-behaved!) kids got top billing, and the ugly ducklings like me got shunted off into the chorus. Hurr durr, or something.
Ah, if only YouTube existed 20 years ago! While the majority of me cringes at the thought of listening to my awful singing voice played back at me (why yes, I sounded every bit as bland and boyish and uncute at 6 as I do at 26!), it would be one hell of a nostalgia trip. I want to say that there is indeed archival footage of little Yoshi in this nonsense, alas there is not– the closest I could find was kindergarten “graduation,” which for some reason involves singing about dinosaurs. o_O;
I don’t get it. As much as I hated my elementary school for all the crap I went through, part of me still wants to go back… to review all the shenanigans if only to WTF at it.