Christmas Wrap-Up
Saturday, December 29, 2012
We had such a wonderful holiday over here. It's taken me the weekend to fully recover. The days leading up to our big annual day program were CRA-ZY! There were so many little details to pull together. We had guests and visitors coming in from all over, food to be ordered, costumes to be made, the school to decorate, programs to be printed, invitations to be sent out and kids to organize. Every year I think to myself, "oh my gosh, I can't believe we're trying to do this again!" Our team each split up responsibilities which made everything much easier to manage and on Christmas Eve at about 10:30, we felt ready to go. The kids left out a big glass of milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. We also organized a big family secret santa and this year everyone actually did an amazing job of keeping secret. The kids had so much fun shopping and putting together thoughtful little gifts for one another.
By Christmas morning our satsung family room was all decorated and the tree was covered in gifts. The kids all swore they heard santa up on the roof :)
Photo by Ben Heiber
photo by Ben Heiber
By 11 o'clock the kids were all ready dressed in their new winter pajamas and ready at school. Our Chief of Police came, our local Chief Education Officer, and Kalpana Sharma, our education minister's daughter who came in all the way from Kathmandu. (Such an honor.) We played a video while everyone came in and took their seats and before we knew it the show began.
Nisha and Yubraj did an amazing job MCing the entire show! It's the first time we've had the kids MC by themselves.
After our inauguration and the lighting of the lamp, there were some speeches by the kids and our administrators and then the show began. The kids were amazing. All of their dances were spot on and they really knew how to work the crowd. We were all so impressed and proud. Srijana (our U.K. dance teacher) and Asmita had taught them all traditional cultural dances that were absolutely stunning. Kalpana Miss coreographed a song called simple simple with her first graders that had everyone in awe and our kindergarten and nursery teachers had their little ones put on the most adorable skits with nursery rhymes.
When it came time for the drama/play there over 1000 people in the audience anxiously waiting. Man Kumari and our principal worked so hard to put together an amazing show and managed to get everyone in the audience laughing during just about every scene. The entire show was full of relevant moral lessons for our community and society. The stars of the show were Hikmat, Shova, Roshan, Goma, Padam, Suray, Sujan, Kalpana, Naveen, and Keshav. Their acting was off the hook and reminded me to have more theatrical performances open to the community in 2013.
There was dancing, dancing, and more dancing. We also announced the winners of the Kopila Cup and our picks for students of the year! Congrats to the Sun house who will get to hold the title until next year. Keshav Shahi (class 7) and Asmita Puri (class 4) for their "Student of the Year" awards for overcoming adversity and excelling in academic and extracurricular activities. One of our favorite moments was when our Chief of Police gave the award to Alisa. How adorable!
Unbeknownst to the entire crowd, the kids, and staff the Kopila Fellows and I surprised the kids with a special number. We had put a mash-up of songs together, Nepali, then the kids favorite Hindi song, and then Gangam style. The crowd went wild and we had a lot of fun. We were so proud of ourselves.
And then we ended the program by honoring our special guests for their support this year and the big school bus surprise. Thank you all again (especially dear Matt) for making that so much fun. Everyone was so happy up on stage dancing and celebrating. This was our best Christmas ever.
By the time we fed everyone and got the school cleaned up I totally forgot that there was a tree full of presents and Christmas to celebrate back at home. We had ordered momos for dinner which was perfect because we were all too exhausted to cook. Of course I was still wrapping my secret santa and gifts at the last minute and my body was physically the most tired it had been in a while, but I felt so content and proud of our team for pulling off such a wonderful celebration after preparing all month.
All we had left to do was enjoy some momos together and go up and open presents with our entire family and visiting friends around the tree. It was absolutely perfect. The kids would cheer every single time one of them ran over to the tree and read of the name of the person whose gift it was and watch anxiously while they opened. The best part was watching them each open gifts from each other.
Thank you all so much for making this such a special and fun few days of surprises for us. Lots of love from Nepal!
***Special thanks for Dan Furlong for coming to visit with so many sweet gifts for the kids, She's the First Videographers Brittany and Brianne for capturing everything on video, and Ben Heiber for all the wonderful photos.