Christmas Festivities (2017)

Inuujaq School held its annual Christmas Concert on December 14^th at the local community hall.  There was a lot of excitement & anticipation in the community as to what acts the students & teachers had prepared for the show.  I was a member of the planning committee again this year.  The committee was responsible for booking & decorating the venue, putting together a program, organizing the dress rehearsal, advertising the event to the community, transporting the necessary equipment to the community hall, and finding two emcees.  I was able to borrow a pickup truck to transport the drums to and from the hall.  The dress rehearsal was held the day before the concert and from what I saw, the concert was going to be quite entertaining.

            

Emcees on stage.

The concert started at 7pm.  The community hall was packed with people.  The program called for 14 acts.  The concert committee recruited two high school students to act as emcees.  One spoke in Inuktitut and the other in English.  Their main task was to introduce the acts.  I gave both emcees a short pep talk on how to address the audience just before the curtains opened.

            

Kindergarten

The Kindergarten students started off the festivities by singing “Little Drummer Boy” in Inuktitut and English.  The sound quality was a little better because we had placed three microphones at the foot of the stage.  Grade 1 did a western Inuit dance with the help of the high school Inuit culture teacher.  She played the Inuit drum.

            

Grade 3.

This year, Inuujaq School has two Grade 2 classes.  Grade 2A sang “Jingle Bells” and Grade 2B did a play called “Santa Nurse”.  The Grade 3 class also did a play called “Be Happy It’s Christmas” and Grade 4 sang “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”.  Grade 5 did a humourous rhyme skit called “Abadabadooba”.  The skit involved doing choreographed hand motions.

            

Grade 6 performed a funny charades skit, set to the song “I’m Gettin Nuttin For Christmas,” sung by Shirley Temple.  Half the students were sitting at a large table with their arms tucked behind their backs.  The other students were hiding behind the chairs but stuck their arms through, giving the sitting students new sets of hands.  In the world of improv, this technique is called Helping Hands.  While the song played, the students’ arms waved and threw plastic forks & plates around as if to cause a mess.  The antics were well received by the audience.

            

Grade 7

Grade 7 performed a dance to the classic song “Silent Night,” using long ribbons, the kind you see in rhythmic gymnastics.  Grade 8 danced to a popular hip-hop song, led by their teacher John.  He’s a brave individual.  I wouldn’t be able to stomach the pressure of dancing in front of people.  The Grade 9 class did a Christmas-themed puppet show.  The puppets were made from brown paper bags.  The students also made a colourful backdrop.

            

Inuujaq School Staff.

The Grade 9 & 8 teachers, Calbert & John, played several rhythmic beats on African hand drums to the delight of everyone.  All the young kids crowded around the front of the stage to listen to the beats.  Calbert sang a Caribbean song and got everyone to clap along.  The staff of Inuujaq School performed a skit titled, “Attitude Is Everything”.  The theme of the skit was maintaining a positive attitude throughout the Christmas Holidays.

            

High School Drumline

The last act of the concert was also the best: the high school drumline.  Originally, I wanted my drummers to perform last because they wanted to include the water effect – pouring water on the drums and hitting them hard enough to cause the water to fly up.  Unfortunately, the amount of microphone wires crossing the stage forced us to reconsider.  We played three marching cadences and a few solos.  I found the cadences online.  The audience really enjoyed our set.  At the request of several people, I played my Halloween quad drum solo again.  I think they liked it because it revolved around the use of triplets.  When the curtains closed, I shook my drummers’ hands and congratulated them on another successful performance.  They helped me pack everything up and transport it back to the school.

            

The emcees thanked everyone for coming to the concert and wished everyone a safe & happy Christmas.

            

December 15^th was the last day of school before the Christmas break.  The day would be a fun day.  Everyone assembled in the gym before lunch for a half hour of carolling.  The front of the gym was set up with two microphones and two speakers.  The Grade 1 teacher’s husband was recruited to play the guitar.  Paper booklets containing a variety of Christmas carols were handed out to everyone in attendance.  The lyrics were printed in Inuktitut & English.  Several teachers took turns coming up to the front and leading everyone in a round of singing.

            

Santa came to Inuujaq School after lunch to hand out presents to the K-8 students and to pose for pictures.  The older students received gift certificates to the Co-op store.  Once Santa was finished his visit, everyone was dismissed.  I stayed an extra hour and cleaned my classroom.  I headed home and began packing for my trip down south.  I would be celebrating Christmas & the New Year with family & friends. 

            

But getting to my southern home for Christmas would be an adventure all on its own.

See you all in 2018!