The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Do you ever have those moments of weakness where your head opens, your brain falls out, and you say something that you come to regret later?

Mine was four months ago when I said in passing that I might like to put together a Christmas program as a part of my volunteer duties as worship leader for the Sunday school at my church. By worship leader, I mean me trying to coordinate a Powerpoint with words, memory stick with song, microphone, hand actions and appeal to 80 kids from age 3 to 12. It's more like a spastic one armed monkey dancing for coins than worship most Sundays but I'm doing my best and hoping God will bless my efforts. Add to the fact that I volunteered before I knew my life would hit hyperspeed with two girls that run (as my husband calls it) on "max velocity" during the waking hours.

Nonetheless, my pet peeve is people that go back on their word or shirk responsibility so I determinedly set out to put together a Christmas program. I looked through endless scripts to modify, listened to many .mp3 versions of songs (including a free download of "Away in a Manger" that sounded like a rather inebriated Russian trying to learn English with a strong techno beat pounding in the background), and watched a YouTube video for hours trying to teach myself sign language to "Silent Night".

I soon realized I should have started practice WAY before Thanksgiving. I cut "Silent Night" down to one verse only as that's all the sign language we could learn. I cut out the song at the end of the program because I only get about 10 minutes at the start of Sunday school to try to teach the kids all they need to know. What really happens is that my pre-schoolers kind of watch me in wander, swaying side to side, picking their nose, lifting up their dress, mumbling a word here and there but give the chorus a great gusto. The third and fourth grade boys are "too cool for school" and act like hand actions are beneath them. The fifth and six graders hang back hoping I won't notice that they are trying their best to act bored. Or maybe they really are bored.

Anyway, we finally got through a rehearsal on Sunday complete with several microphone fiascos and two missing actors. I felt slightly ready as I made my construction paper wise man crowns and found a blue throw pillow that will double as a pregnant belly. I still hadn't solved the problem of Mary needing to "deliver" in front of the audience (i.e. shake the pillow out from underneath her large white tunic and somehow translate that into my friend's very much alive baby being placed in a manger) when I was notified that due to the recent ice storms, the church was without power and the program would have to be postponed.

No problem, thought I, it gives me a week to think through the final placements and flow of things...until I was notified by three separate sets of parents of kids WITH speaking parts that their children would be MIA on Sunday. A quick email to a friend allowed me to find a replacement female Shepherd #2 but alas, I am still sans an Innkeeper and a Wise Man. I've told Darren that if worse comes to worse, he will have to be my oversized Wise Innkeeper Man. If anyone else doesn't show up, he could end up being my oversized Angelic Narrating Wise Innkeeper Shepherd Man. Hope he can learn a lot of lines fast, if need be.

And we already have a Moses costume for him to wear. It may be mixing our milliniums and make Biblical scholars roll over in their mausoleums but it's the only costume that fits a 6'5" Angelic Narrating Wise Innkeeper Shepherd Man. If it's not the Best Christmas Pageant Ever, at least it will be memorable.