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A Bear-y Merry Holiday
FTLComm - Regina - Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The tradition of a school Christmas concert is as old as Saskatchewan itself. Everyone who grew up here has had their experience being a part of a Christmas concert and then going one each year to share in your children’s celebration. This year it was our grand daughter Aurora’s first concert. (Aurora is in the centre of the picture above, taken by her father Matthew)

Aurora attends kindergarten at Ècole Elsie Mironuck in the northwest portion of Regina. Because of the school’s size the kindergarten, grades one, two and three have their own concert. The school holds its concerts in the nearby Martin Collegiate using its auditorium which is perfectly suited for this kind of a programme. Because of the number of parents there were two shows, one in the afternoon and we attended the evening performance. In keeping with the multi-cultural secular world in which we find ourselves the programme is not called a Christmas concert.

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The nature of the show as a musical play. All of the classes came out on the stage or were positioned on stands in front of the stage then as they did their song which was part of the musical they stood up in their places and did their bit. To tie the songs together eight students from the grade four, five and six classes were each speaking “bears” who kept the numbers rolling along. The idea being that each child was a bear and each class was a specific type of bear from panda to polar. The whole thing was led by Ms. Madhur and Ms. Hendricks who directed the children from in front of the stage. The whole thing came off flawlessly and each child did their part singing and using gestures to be a part of their numbers. It took a mere forty-five minutes.

We all will cling to our memories but this isn’t the 86 person village I grew up in where we all spoke with the same accent and new the name of all fourteen dogs in the village. Things have changed and this is the reality for Aurora and her classmates.

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