christmas concerts

So, there are some things that I love about this time of year. Yes, it’s manic, no, there’s never enough time to get everything done, yes, I’m panicking over the gift knitting and the gift buying, and stressing out about the cards, and the food, and hoping that no-one gets ill, or if they do, that they get better in time for Christmas…

But then there are the concerts, and these moments are among the ones that remind me that life is precious, and fleeting, and that my beautiful children will only play this piece, here, now, just this once, and I need to concentrate and appreciate it because soon it will be gone. And because I always think thoughts like this when I watch my children perform, I always cry, and have to pretend not to, because they will be embarrassed and I will be panda-eyed. And because I want to concentrate fully on the moment, I never video the concerts, and what photographs I take are hardly worthy of the name; instead they serve as markers in time, reminders that we were there, then, and that piece, that moment, happened.

Every year, Alex busks with his cello group to raise money for charity. When he started, he was one of the little ones at the front wearing the Santa hat or the reindeer antlers. Now he is one of the big ones at the back (to the right of this photo), clad in black and with his floppy fringe covering his face.

The last day of term at my boys’ school is always the end of term concert. This year Will (on the left) and a friend performed the Leonard Cohen song ‘Hallelujah’, and Alex and a friend performed the Tears for Fears song ‘Mad World’. Both songs were beautiful, and yes, both made me cry…

On Saturday (which was also Will’s sixteenth birthday), both boys performed in the musical  The Music Man with their drama group. You might be able to spot Will at the back on the right, with a top hat on, and Alex over on the left, wearing a dark jacket and a straw boater. It was the first time they have performed on stage together, and it was lovely watching them.

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