ELK POINT – Although it started out, as usual, with a song by Debbie Woods’ Kindergarten class, the 2023 version of Elk Point Elementary School’s Christmas Concert was not like the others in the past. For one thing, there was no sign of Santa, and for another, the creator of the play, teacher Stephanie Earle, wasn’t on hand to direct the proceedings.
Principal Leanne Vinge, who said in her words of welcome that it isn’t the Christmas day itself that is the most exciting to her, “It’s the build up to it… and the community getting together to enjoy our concert,” went on to tell the audience that Mrs. Earle was ill, “and we had a few moments of panic. But (substitute teacher) Mrs. Shankowski stepped in and took over. I’m so proud of how our staff pulled together and kept the concert together.”
The Kindergarten students had indicated “I Want to Be An Elf” in the opening number, but when the play itself started with a crisis in Elf Land, the 6A students plainly indicated that they were stressed by the imminent arrival of Christmas, to the point where Elf Tinsel said, “Maybe we could skip it this year,” due to problems in the toy assembly line.
Those problems might just have started in the 1950s, when Elf Tack spent too much time trying to invent a time machine to keep his mind on the toys. Some 70 years later, when the blueprints for the machine were found in a forgotten cupboard, things were still going wrong in the factory.
Between the IA students declaring “All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” Grade 4A determined to “Deck The Halls” and Grade 1B reciting “The Christmas Alphabet,” time in Elf Land zipped up to the 1980s and back to the 1890s in a most confusing fashion, meeting the current elves from all of those time periods.
Despite it all, Grade 3A was “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time,” Grade 5A was serenading “Christmas Time” on their ukuleles and Grade 2A celebrated “A Canadian Christmas” of long ago, complete with pumpkin pies in a clay oven and a roast turkey on the table, with their song.
Shortly after the Grade 3/4 class sang “O Christmas Tree”, the time-travelers met up one final time with their 1890s counterparts, and one long-ago lady elf with a literary bent summed up the situation nicely, saying, “I shall endeavour to write this all down, a Tale of Tinsel and Tack.”
The concert wound up with all the participants from all those years overflowing the stage to circle around the capacity crowd of their families to sing and dance ‘The Holiday Fling’ as a cheerful farewell amid the applause of their audience.
