When you have children, no holiday season is complete without the annual 'Holiday Program'. Whatever the holiday being featured, it is sure to be the sweetest, dearest and most comical twenty minutes of December (well, other than your kids playing with the boxes the toys came in, that is..) Our Church Preschool Nativity was no different. We had the privilege of being stage parents to a versatile little actress. One night she was to play a sheep and the next night, Mary. A diva in training, she preferred her role as Mary but we convinced her that being a sheep one night might be better than being a sheep both nights. In a glorious production, the children sang their way through the Christmas story, complete with handheld jingle bells, though I don't remember a lot of sleigh travel in Judea. The two year olds were wide-eyed stars who either cried, yawned (as Hallie did) or sucked their thumbs. Graced with another year of maturity, the three and some four year olds were angels (wearing new wings this year, I might add). Much like the seniors in high school, the pre-K children had finally worked their way to the top of the heap. Basically, this means that they had costumes that took more than a minute to put on and they probably wouldn't cry. They were cast as sheep, shepherds, wise men and the Holy family. And so it came to pass that, led by the teachers, the children paraded in - the littlest and most flighty held by the hand. They gathered around the little manger and obligatory baby doll. {note: Mary, not being allowed to pick up her own baby at home REALLY would have been okay carrying in the baby Jesus down the aisle}
To announce the Good News, they sang 'Go Tell it on the Mountain' followed by 'Mary Had a Baby'. 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Christmas Star' led the way to the stable and 'Away in a Manger' told us of the baby's first night. At that point, the telling of the story was done because the bells were passed (which Mary immediately dropped and had to dive under the manger to retrieve) and the loud, joyful, seriously lacking in rhythm ringing began. After the quick collection of the bells, the children wished the audience a merry Christmas, in song, and posed for the cameras. It's not hard to guess that the photo session lasted nearly as long as the program as, class by class, the parents were invited forward to capture every memory. Each tear, sneeze, yawn, wave, and squirm are forever captured on the memory cards of everyone's cameras. Access to all pictures is required in order to get the real feel for the evening because, of course, each parent's photos of their child holds the toddler's brief flicker of attention. It's a well known fact that every one else has pictures of your child picking his or her nose and pulling on their hats.
The beauty of Hallie having reached the age of four is that she 'gets' Christmas. Yes we have more work to do now in terms of making sure Santa does his job but, Hallie knows why we celebrate Christmas and understands the message and meaning of Christmas. She can switch with ease between the stories of Jesus and the stories of Santa Claus and knows that the latter is the person who keeps the spirit of Christmas going by acting like Jesus wanted - being kind and giving, and loving everyone. Pretty good for four, I think. You know.....when the world gets too scary and I need a reminder of how it should be...I'm going to her.
For a simple version of the Christmas story watch the clip below. Enjoy!
