A joyous noise was heard ringing out from the Nativity of Our Savior Catholic School in Portage on the evening of December 20th; it was time once more for the school’s annual Christmas program.
Each year sees a new theme, and this year the program was based on “the 12 Days of Christmas.” And just like how in the song the gifts keep getting greater in number, so too has the attendance for the program each year. “It just keeps getting bigger. We’ve actually had to set a ‘doors open at’ time to manage everyone,” said the school’s music teacher, Jenny Chandler, who also organizes the Christmas program.
Dressed in their Christmas finest, around 220 students filed into a church already packed full with family as members of the Catholic Youth Organization band played a Christmas arrangement under the direction of David Little. “All the kids playing tonight are Nativity students too. This is the second year we’ve been part of this, and all the students love playing for the Christmas program,” he said.
The program itself was made up of a mix of singing, dancing, hand bells and recorders. Each grade from Jr. Kindergarten to eighth would stand at the front of the church to perform, and in between performances a select few students read short passages about Christmas as part of the program. In line with the readings, other students would place stars upon what began as a once-barren tree and ended up so covered in stars you could barely see the branches beneath them all.
At the end of the hour-long program, Chandler invited all of the Nativity alumni to come to the front where all the children had gathered to sing the eponymous song of the night, “the 12 Days of Christmas,” together. A number of alumni even accepted that invitation, and sang from the back row as the littlest children in front raised their numbered cards at (approximately) the right time in the song.