Simon's Montessori Pageant

ERMEGLERB you guys, do you want to hear about the cutest thing?

What's that you say? ALWAYS?

Good. Settle in and get ready for some culture, y'all.

Now, anything I used to know from my Russian language class in high school has since been replaced with internet memes, 30 Rock quotes, and internet memes quoting 30 Rock. What I am about to convey to you has been hastily Googled and proof read by Ian.

To start, in Russia New Years is a much bigger holiday than Christmas, as Christmas used to be illegal in Soviet Russia. It's all cool now, but Christmas is a more quiet, religious occasion here. It falls on January 7th as per the Orthodox calendar. December 31st is where it's at, kicking off ten days of celebration including fasting (meh) and feasting (RAD!).

New Year's Eve is the night Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost (Not exactly an equivalent of Santa Claus) and his granddaughter, Snegurochka, or the Snow Maiden, give gifts to well behaved children.

And that's about all any of us needs to know beyond this point.

Today Simon's glass performed a holiday program complete with dancing, singing, costumes, and presents from Ded Moroz and Snegurochka! I was not prepared for how elaborate and well planned this all was!

Just LOOKIT:

  First, all these little darlings, dressed in their best shirts and most sparkly and floofiest dresses, paraded into the room.

Then they joined hands to dance and sing a song with their teachers.

 

Then everyone settled in for a little play put on by the teachers.

Enter Winter herself to chill the air, freeze the rivers and decorate the world with beautiful ice and snow!

Everybody dance!

 Be an icicle!

Stand there!

Oh look! It's Snegurochka and... a climate change denier? I'm not really sure what was happening here.

Ian?

  

"Comic relief character to do the opposite of whatever was supposed to be going on."

Ah.

Oh look! Two familiar faces for the price of one! Simon's English Teacher, Jose, dressed as Santa Claus!

 

 This was the moment Simon was to recite a poem about winter with Santa, but he declined. This was something he recited before and after class, but absolutely not during the show.

Kids.

Soon after this all the kids sang Jingle Bells. Except for Simon. He wasn't up for it. He was probably exhausted from singing it at the top of his lungs the whole way to school this morning.

K.I.D.S.

 Enter Ded Moroz!

A lot happened at this point. The kids all made a circle around Grandfather Frost to trap him and play Keep-Away with his mitten. He threatened to freeze them all if they didn't release him. They let him go and then the teachers tossed baskets of "snow balls" in the air for the children to gather up. Simon was sitting in my lap watching the games unfold and didn't participate until it was time for...

 Maracas!

 Grandfather Frost passed out snowflakes for everyone to put on the New Year Tree.

And then everyone got a present! Mostly books it seemed like, although Simon got a small board game about the Solar System. He was pretty pumped about it.

HAYUM!

  And then we got some family photos in front of the New Years Tree.

Afterwards there was a tea party for the parents and children. It was all very lovely and Simon made sure to hum Jingle Bells very loudly while he took one bite out of everything.  It was a fun way to spend the morning!

EDIT:
I FORGOT ONE OF THE BEST PARTS

When the kids were scrambling after the snowballs that were being thrown they played a wacky song, and while the lyrics were missing, the song was VERY FAMILIAR!!