An Unconventional Pairing 12/17/2023

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Perhaps it is because I live in the country.  Maybe it is my rural setting that allows for certain aspects of my Christmas celebration to be, how shall I describe it, a bit different.  Then again, that could be just one of countless factors. I hadn’t really put much thought into how my personal Christmas in my tiny town may be a bit different than your average.  I just knew what I was accustomed to. But then just a few nights ago it occurred to me that my celebratory season could be unique in a few ways.  I thought I might talk a little about that today.  I personally could write for ages about Christmas but since I dare say all of you, my beloved readers, grow weary of the same old topics, I am going to put in a valiant effort at being at least faintly original.  Please note that I am simply trying. I make no promises.

The catalyst that began my thought process was the Christmas Program at my daughter’s school.  I suppose everyone is familiar with little kids dressed in festive attire singing songs that have been sung for decades at least, and sometimes much longer. However, the theming of my daughter’s school is a bit out of the ordinary. Yes, there was festive attire. Yes, there were traditional songs. But this was a Holiday Ho-down. Yes, that’s right. The children were encouraged to wear either Christmas attire or Western attire. Now, I cannot say that I made the immediate connection.  As a matter of fact, this seems to be the same program they do every year, so this special concept isn’t new. It was only when the principal announced things as a “true country, Holiday Ho-down” that it occurred to me that yes, I suppose if ever a place could be authentically country, this small town and its small-town school would be it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we are all a bunch of bumpkins.  We most certainly are not.  I do see many cows, chickens, a few pigs, some goats, turkeys, and countless acres of hay field taking my daughter to school every day. And those were just domesticated animals.  From the wild I see deer, hawks, raccoons, squirrels, possum, and the occasional armadillo. We are in the country, there is no doubt about that. So, I suppose a random combination of boots and bandanas mixed with reindeer and ribbons is not that outlandish an idea. The ensembles the kids came in ranged from the designer cowgirl to the fully lit Christmas sweater complete with matching antlers. Then there were all the in-betweens that shoved the two genres together like adorable little festive farmhands. 

This variety of characters sang classic songs. There were countless phones held high in the air as parents filmed little reindeer and cowboys singing about wanting hippopotamuses or their two front teeth as gifts for the season.  There were little dance routines and the occasional red Rudolph nose. There were even a few younger siblings in the audience executing the same choreography that they saw on stage since clearly, someone had been practicing at home. There was the heart-warming crowd of tiny hands, waving at their parents from the stage.  Parents in the crowd were then blocking half of the audience’s view to stand and wave back at children as if they had never seen them before, knowing good and well that they had all just that evening rushed home from school threw on some boots and rushed back.

In thinking about it now, my daughter had to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer yet I, for some idiotic and thoroughly unknown reason, made the grave error of teaching her the very untraditional and a tad disconcerting similar ditty called Randolph the Bow-legged Cowboy. If you know the tune, no, I do not know why I even uttered it in her presence much less repeated it more than once. I am going to have to chalk that up as an utter parenting fail. I think she may have somewhat forgotten it at this point and the Lord knows I certainly won’t be bringing it up again.  But I tell you about that faux pas since, in thinking about it, I suppose it was a little appropriate for a Holiday Ho-down. Well, then again, considering the content of the song, it’s maybe not ever truly appropriate, but you get what I mean.

At the end of the show all the classes stood in the aisles and surrounded the audience.  Their closing number was a rousing rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. But at the end they added a very enthusiastic “Yee-Haw!” It was endearing I must admit.  It was just a little country school putting on a little country Christmas show, and we left with smiles all around.  Maybe doing things a bit out of the ordinary is a good thing.  It seemed to produce an enjoyable result using a recipe with generous portions of tradition and a splash of out of the ordinary.  Maybe I should add more of those types of dishes to the season.