DRESSED IN THEIR CHRISTMAS FINERY, A GROUP OF TODDLERS AND TWO-YEAR-OLDS PLAY WITH JINGLE BELLS AS THE CHOIR SINGS ”JINGLE BELLS” DURING THE ANNUAL 5CS CHRISTMAS PROGRAM LAST THURSDAY. FROM LEFT: MONROE MEANS, EASTON HILL, GRAYSON TAYLOR, NAOMI BATES AND RYDER LOVENBURG. Gini Davis/The Creswell Chronicle
The warm nostalgia of ”Christmas at Papa and Grams” was evoked during the 41st Creswell Christian Child Care Center (5Cs) Christmas Program, held Dec. 13 at Creswell Church of Christ.
The program, said 5Cs director, Debby Hisey, was dedicated to her mother and longtime 5Cs teacher, Imogene Hisey – who attended – and her late father, Chuck Hisey. ”They are ‘Grams and Papa’ to 20 grandkids, and they had a great-grandchild in this year’s program,” Hisey said.
The grandmas and grandpas, moms, dads and others who filled the sanctuary took a fond trip down memory lane, led by children festively costumed as cups of cocoa, gingerbread men, Christmas presents and toy soldiers, and narrator Shelby Lybarger’s reminiscences about traveling to grandma and grandpa’s house for Christmas.
”It was always the best time of the year,” Lybarger narrated, ”recalling” sleigh rides through the snow, eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate in front of the fireplace, and a wonderful old trunk in which Christmas toy soldiers and many more treasures were to be found.
The program opened with Church of Christ Pastor Doug Allison inviting everyone to stand and sing ”O Come All Ye Faithful.” Then, the 5Cs Christmas Choir – wearing glasses and aprons like ”Papa” and ”Grams” – sang ”Over the River and Through the Woods” to introduce the program’s theme.
Toddlers and two-year-olds wearing their Christmas finery joined the Choir for ”A Tiny Little Baby,” ”Jingle Bells” and ”Angel Band.”
Stalwart Christmas Toy Soldiers joined the Choir for ”I’m in the Lord’s Army” and ”He is King.”
The Choir was joined by Gingerbread Men and marshmallow-topped cups of Cocoa for charming renditions of ”Take Me Out to My Grandma’s,” ”Hot Chocolate” and ”Bundle Up.”
Lybarger narrated remembrances of being allowed to open ”just one present” on Christmas Eve at Papa and Grams’: ”This was the first year I got to give presents of my own, and I found out how fun it is to shop for and wrap presents for someone else,” she said.
Gaily wrapped living Presents, their tags addressing them to ”Papa,” ”Grams” or ”Papa and Grams,” joined the Choir for ”Wrap it All Up”; Kindergartner Kadence Miller and Pre-K students Emily Berry, Adalynn Morgan and Isabelle Nibblett sang the first verse of ”Happy Birthday, Jesus” and joined the Presents and Choir in singing the rest of the song.
Last to emerge from the delightful old Christmas trunk was Papa and Grams’ nativity scene, set up in a place of honor to remind the family of ”the true meaning of the season,” Lybarger said, relating how Papa would tell the grandchildren the Christmas story of Christ’s birth.
The Nativity, comprised of Mary (Kaycie Willhite), Joseph (Ryker Dietrich), Shepherds, Sheep and the Three Wise Men joined the Choir in singing ”Sheep Party” and ”Hush, There’s a Baby.”
All the children returned to the stage to join the Choir in singing ”A Tiny Little Baby” and ”We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
”We’re honored you chose to spend some time with us, remembering what Christmas is all about,” Lybarger said – her words encompassing, like the program itself, children’s wonder and joy and the excitement of Christmas morning, as well as the celebration of Christ’s birth.
The audience joined in singing the closing number, ”Joy to the World,” and before giving the closing prayer, Allison asked guests to give one more round of applause to each group of children (Choir, Presents, etc.) separately.
Teaching 12 songs each year to youngsters not yet old enough to read challenged 5Cs teachers and children, but the payoff is always worth it: ”My favorite is those kids who struggle a little bit to learn the songs or just to come up (onstage), and overcome it,” Hisey said. ”Seeing that light in their eyes when they say ‘I did it’… You can’t beat it.”
Those special moments with each new group of children make ”every year my favorite,” Hisey said. ”We do the very best we can, and God takes what we do and turns it into what it is. It’s like the ‘loaves and fishes’; every year, He’s done that.”
