Celebrating in Several Languages

As with many churches around the world, our church reserves one of the Sundays before Christmas for the children's Christmas program. Each age group spends weeks preparing a special presentation which ranges from a simple song for the younger crowd to self written skits or elaborately choreographed dances for the older ones. The day of the program all the children were given festive hats to wear. Here is one of my friend's beautiful little girls in the grand entrance parade down the aisle.Our church has a wide mix of people in it from countries all around West Africa to Europe, the Americas and Asia.
Kay is one of several English speakers that go to Sunday school each week. In fact, the 6 English speakers that attend Sunday school are all in her class! For this reason, for the last few years her class has decided to sing a song in English. I try to find one with simple, repetitive words that all of the class can learn quickly. (Did you ever notice how many Christmas songs have complicated vocabulary and how few use repetitive words!?) Because so much of the education system here is orally based, the children have amazing memories and their ability to pick up other languages daily puts me to shame! The day of the program, the children were all given festive hats to wear. Here are Kay and her classmate, Bright, leading the singing of the English song. In addition to the song they learned this year, they sang last year's "Go Tell It on the Mountain." Each student also memorized one verse in the Christmas story. So together they were able to recount the scripture retelling of Jesus' birth. Kay was happy that by accident, she was given the same verse she memorized last year. When you are memorizing in a second language, you need all the help you can get! She did a great job! We were proud of her!
Here are two more of Kay's classmates and our near neighbors. They are Swiss and speak French at home, but are also fluent in English.
After the program's successful completion, the kids run outside to celebrate with snacks, juice and little gifts.

The Best Christmas Gift of all...

Our family was blessed with an abundance of good things this Christmas. We had fun playing croquet together after my parents sent us a new set. We spent vacation watching lots of fun family movies that various members received. Tom produced beautiful magnets for his sisters. Of course, chocolate of various shapes and sizes was found in stockings and wrapping paper.
Kay was really excited about the sewing boxes that she and Heidi received this year. They had fun putting all the sewing notions into the different little compartments.

All the kids loved the sleeping bags they got from Grammy and Papa... so warm and fuzzy!

The new keyboard was also a big hit. Heidi practices diligently and is getting really quite good. Kay loves to find the songs already programed into the keyboard and dance to them.

But the favored present of all came from Auntie Beth... No camera can capture her rapture at getting...


RANCH DRESSING!

Stocking shots

Here are the traditional Christmas morning in pjs with stocking shots... usually I escape, but I was some how caught and Beth escaped this year. Curses, foiled again...

The better to see with my dear...

Kay's teacher approached us about the middle of last semester to let us know that she and various others had given her class basic eye exams with the traditional eye chart. Four exams in a row with various people had resulted in the conclusion that Kay could only see to the second line with one of her eyes! This came as a big surprise to us; we had just had her at the doctor this summer for a check up- complete with eye exam. We are thankful for the number of services that are now available in Niger; and that an optometrist is among them! Ian took her to the eye doctor, and though the process wasn't quite the same as in the US ( it was a bit slower due to a month long vacation between the two eye appointments), Kay is now a proud member of the family four eyes club. I love this picture of my precious Kaylo. She has such a tender heart and loves to encourage others. She is also the one that keeps me on my knees as I watch her struggle being the middle child with strong emotions.

Christmas Spirit Day

Other children content themselves with dressing in a green shirt for Christmas Spirit day, but not mine... never can you call them underachievers in the costume department. A snowflake, an elf, and a Sahelian Santa left the house last Friday for their last day of school before break! For more not to be missed footage of the Sahelian Santa, visit Tom's teacher's blog at

Christmas Eve Theatricals

I did not live close to my extended family while I was growing up. (At holiday time, I often reflect how celebrating with our just our own nuclear family and a few close friends prepared me for celebrating holidays without huge family gatherings here in Niger. It seems normal to me!) We had a lot of traditions: like listening to Handel's Messiah while we decorated the tree, finding oranges and apples in our stocking toes and heels, and Sara Lee coffee cake for Christmas breakfast. Some of my favorite Christmas memories, however, involved our annual Nativity play. Because we lived far from extended family, we always spent Christmas with dear friends who were in the same boat. Their two boys joined my sister and I in writing and performing theatrical masterpieces... or at least variations on the Nativity story. I remember Jason knocking on the closet door one year only to have the "innkeeper" tell him there was no room in the inn, I remember being an angel in my white bathrobe, I remember Jonathan refusing to stay laying down in the manger when everyone knows baby Jesus couldn't sit up at birth! There was the year a modern Jesus was born in the garage and laid in a tire, and several different people as donkeys who my sister, Amy, usually got to ride as Mary. My favorite memory remains the fabulous rap we wrote one year, a concise and spit filled version of Luke 2... but I digress...

This year we had the second annual Christmas play performed by the seven Niger Rideout cousins. They have a lot larger cast then we did growing up, but can't say that they have any less fun! This year's masterpiece was entitled "Jesus, the Lone Star." You might be able to guess from the title that it was a cowboy themed nativity play complete with stick horses. Kay, in her stunning turquoise shirt and matching sparkly cowgirl hat was the narrator. Mary (Brynn) and Joe (Tom) are told by the barkeep (Elayna) there is no room in the bar, so they are offered a stable in which to sleep. An angel (Elayna), a vision of veiled splendor, visits cowboys (Kira) in nearby pastures watching their doggies (literally the dog next door) by night to tell of Jesus' birth. Visiting mayors (Heidi and Silas-in pink cowboy boots) from far eastern towns came bearing gifts of money and perfume. The stellar performance concluded for the second year in a row with a rousing rendition of "We wish you a Merry Christmas." So great was the clamor of the audience, that a repeat performance of the entire play was given (though without the cow, who was hiding under the couch). It was definitely a Christmas to remember. I wonder what they will dream up next year... I already offered to teach them my rap...

The last first tooth...

I celebrated the last baby spit up, the last night feeding, and the last diaper. I gleefully got rid of the last baby bath, the last stroller, the last portacrib, and the last highchair (how is it that little people have so MUCH equipment?). This week, another last came upon us... the last first tooth.
For years, Tom, wanting to be like his big sisters, has imagined he has loose teeth, so it was with surprise that a few weeks earlier when he told me his tooth was loose, I found it actually wiggled! He has been delighted to wiggle it and Tom-like, very resistant to any unknown, sudden, might cause discomfort schemes the girls had to help it come out sooner. Ian had just tucked him into bed when we heard a holler come from his room. His tooth had come out! Of course we had to take a picture for Grandma...
The fun part was, the next day, the tooth right next to it came out too! Tom was feeling very rich this week! Heidi also lost one of her molars that day! The tooth fairy has very busy around our house! Here is the two space view...
You would think that after two kids, I would be used to the toothless look, but it still makes me smile. While this last is a bit more bitter sweet, I'm not too sad. Lasts always mean new firsts are around the corner: next we get to see new teeth growing in looking enormous in his still small mouth! It is so fun seeing them grow!