ADVENT HAPPENINGS!

The season of Advent is four weeks but they are probably the busiest four weeks of the year as we all prepare for the birthday of our King-Jesus. Here are some of the preparations that  happened at our school, All Saints Catholic and at our parish, Our Lady of the Mountains, these first three weeks of Advent.

Sierra Vista has a Christmas Light Parade the first Saturday of the month. Our school choir rode our school float and entertained the parade viewers by singing Christmas carols for about a 3 mile stretch.

The theme of the parade was " A Cowboy Christmas". It started at 5:30pm and we were float number 22 so by 6:45pm we reached the end of the parade route. We were all happy as it was a chilly, winter night in the mountains.

Back to school to prepare for our Superintendent's annual visit. Sr. Rosa Marie is retiring after 15 years being our Superintendent of the Schools in the Diocese of Tucson. After visiting the classrooms, meeting with the pastor and of course, me, the principal, she enjoyed a pizza lunch with all the students in the cafeteria. She sat with the Student Council and was kept busy answering their questions. I told them it was their job to keep the conversation going and Sr. Rosa Marie said she was amazed at all their questions! Yeah! They followed my direction.

Two of our classes entertained her by showing her their part in our Christmas program.

 Grades 6 and 7 did interpretative dance to tell the story of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Here Mary is visiting her cousin, Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist.

 As the CD played telling the Nativity Story, the girls danced it out for all.

 Here Mary meets St. Joseph, her husband and is presented with the manger to lay the new born baby in.

The boys in Grades 6 and 7 told the story of the life of Jesus to show us all why God the Father sent him to earth. To teach us the new commandment and to die for us so we all could have eternal life.
To be continued..................

After our Superintendent's visit we prepared for the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I first attended the vigil celebration on December 11th prepared by our Hispanic Community. We began with a nighttime procession around our parish grounds.

On the morning of December 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we had our weekly school Mass and my students in Grades 6th and 7th acted out the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe for the rest of the school.

 

That night, we presented our school Christmas program for the public. We had a 1:00pm and a 6:00pm performance. Here is our program to put you into the Christmas spirit.

 We had Santa's elves in PreSchool and in Grades 2 and 3.

 Kindergarten and Grade 1 took us to Hawaii for a hula Christmas.

And here comes Santa on his Santa dune buggy!!!

Grades 6 and 7 brought tears to the eyes of many through their interpretive dance telling the story of the Birth of Jesus through His death and resurrection.

After that our parent group held our annual fundraiser, Breakfast with Santa!  And Santa this year was a Green Bay Packer fan. :):):):):) and that day we had our biggest comeback in the franchise history of the Packers and we beat the Dallas Cowboys!

Look at the wonder in their eyes!

This past week was a fun one in school since our program was done. I enjoyed watching grades 2 and 3 make gingerbread houses as their Christmas present for their parents. They also enjoyed eating the leftovers of the building materials.

Now that school is out, on to the final preparations for the big day!