Keira's Christmas Program

On Thursday night, Keira had her long-awaited stage debut as an angel and a dove in her preschool's "Story of Jesus" Christmas program.

Before it started, the director introduced herself and reminded the audience, "These are three and four-year-olds, so please remember that there will be mistakes...and if you laugh when they're not trying to be funny, you can really hurt their little feelings." She also said there was no videotaping allowed, since the entire program was being professionally filmed and would be sold on DVD for $25 next month.

Bear and I are totally not getting into Heaven.

First of all, $25?! If you know anything about me, you can imagine the height my eyebrows reached when I heard that. I figured taking a minute or two of footage with my tiny handheld camera when Keira hit the stage would be okay--it's not like I set up a tripod or anything. (Apparently, God agreed with my logic, because no lightning bolts hit me at any time.)

Also?

The play featured little boys dressed in shiny gold "star" costumes (Bear: "They look like tiny Klansmen") and the most adorable, incredibly off-key singing we've ever heard.

"Gabriel" told "Mary" that she was to carry God's baby and name him Jesus, and she solemnly replied, "Thank you for telling me. I will."

At the request of last year's children, Fancy Nancy and a plumber had been added to the cast of characters who came to visit baby Jesus in the manger.

Keira accidentally threw her angel bell when she rang it, and then grinned and said, "Whoops!" loudly into the microphone.

The list of giggle-worthy moments goes on and on, and in short, we were unable to comply with the director's "no laughing" rule, either...and neither was anyone else in the audience. The cuteness and the hilarity were just too much. Fortunately, ours was mostly silent, tears-rolling-down-our-faces laughter rather than anything that would've insulted the children's tiny souls (I hope).

Here's a video of Keira as the dove. She had memorized her lines but, like almost every other child, forgot them when she got on stage and repeated them after the director:

"I said the dove, from the rafters high,

I cooed him to sleep...with a lullaby."

And here she is, third red angel from the left, singing "Mary Had a Baby Boy." Sadly, I stopped recording right before she threw her bell. (This is a pretty good example of what all the singing in the play sounded like, and should definitely be filed under "Adorable Cacophony.")

The entire thing was so precious, I could hardly stand it. So precious, in fact, that I will gladly be forking over $25 to own the entire thing on DVD.

Even though that's more than they charge for Beauty and the Beast, which was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

I'm just saying.