Christmas Shows--Round One----

After taking a two year break from her theatre group Friend to Friend, Jena is back in this group and was busy each Friday afternoon, practicing singing and dancing for their Christmas program.  They performed to a packed houses on Friday evening, December 8 and Saturday morning, December 9.  As luck would have it, Gary could only go on Friday evening (I was at work) and I could only go Saturday morning (Gary had to help with Special Olympics bowling.)  One thing about watching a performance like this by yourself is that you can feel a bit freer about crying, so I did.....

First, I love watching Jena perform.  For being a relatively quieter type of person, it is so fun to watch her on stage.  She loves it--the music, the costume, the cast, the work, all of it.  And you can tell!  I am not going to lie--when I held Jena for the first time when she was a month old, I did not expect that she would be my child who loved the theatre like I did or did I think she would have so many great opportunities to enjoy shows, perform, and to volunteer as she has had.

Second, Friend to Friend is a free community theatre class held at Centerpoint Theatre for people with special needs from ages 5 to 100.  Many of them we know from our Special Olympics team or other Down syndrome related groups.  So it is not just Jena performing, but many of our friends and I love that too!.

Plus the director and the volunteers are so awesome and love these cast members so much and that shows in the words and music chosen.  It was a very fun performance.  One not to be missed during the Christmas season.

The boys/men dancing the Sugar Plum dance....I guess it took some talking to get some of them to wear a tutu, but it was so fun!  The men really hammed it up.

One of Jena's small group numbers was "Rudolph"....She was the cute reindeer second from the right.

The girls/women sang wearing their Christmas caroling robes--Jena wasn't a fan of wearing it over her head.

Their closing number was done partial in sign language (which is almost a guaranteed   "crying" moment for me).

My seat was in the balcony on Saturday so here is a view of the whole stage during the curtain call.

It ended with a cast party with lots of food and photos with friends.

How did another party get slipped into the SHOWS post?....well, it is Christmas time!!