On December 23rd, the Nurtury held their yearly Holiday Show. They had hired a company in Westchester to come and teach the children different holiday songs. All the children received an outfit for the day, and parents provided the shoes. Of course, we didn't have any fancy shoes for Elias (what events had we been to?), so we had to rush out to get some new ones. In typical preppy fashion, Elias received a pair of blue and brown Sperry boat shoes that, in typical toddler fashion, he immediately objected to. These were not his shoes! He had shoes, and they were not these! No new shoes would be making their way onto his precious feet! However, it is sometimes the case that God lets parents win in the battles between toddlers and their parents, and so it was in this minor skirmish. I think perhaps Elias merely let us win.
Elias is not so sure about this...
We collected our toddler and made our way across the street to the Country Club for the event. It was raining and very dark out, and Elias was quite confused. But once inside, he realized he could run back and forth between the lamps, telling us over and over that each lamp was "on!", which activity kept him quite satisfied.
And then it was holiday show time! In a beautiful mirrored room, with catered drinks and desserts (really, this show for little kids was beyond anything I had seen for high schoolers! New Yorkers really go all out.), the teachers marched their little chargers up to the stage, three by three. Infants sat in teachers' laps, toddlers in chairs, and primary school kids stood behind, ready to belt (and in the case of one adorable little desi/South Asian boy, to scream a-tonally) the lyrics to songs like Jingle Bells and God Bless America.
And here are some videos for your amusement. We ran out of storage space about 1/5 of the way into the show, so many of Elias's antics were not caught on our tape, but if you can see how adorable he is in the below pictures, you can imagine how it went as the night continued.
The only dark cloud in this otherwise sunny evening was when Elias saw us in the crowd for the first time. We had thought to hide, so that he wouldn't want to come to us, and he had been so brave up there in front of all those strangers. But in a moment, he suddenly turned and looked right at us, and dissolved into tears, poor fellow. He wanted so badly to come down to us, but his teacher Ms. Cami calmed him down and eventually he continued bravely on. Now, however, he could look to us, and copy us as we did the movements for the songs, which he attempted to mimic. It was a glorious day.
