Christmas Programs Past

 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” Luke 2:14

 It started right after Thanksgiving.

 "We have less than two months!  Y'all need to learn these parts."  The ladies of the church--those same ladies who organized the Easter egg hunt every spring and dinner-on-the-grounds every summer--got up a Christmas program every December. 

We gathered one evening after supper, blinking at one another in the familiar place so strangely cold on a Monday when the doors would normally be locked and the lights off. 

Our play wasn't just a children's pageant. Everyone got involved.  One year Ronnie McKinney was King Herod, lounging in an old bathrobe, eating grapes in a display of self-indulgence and cruelty as he ordered all babies in Bethlehem killed.   My dad and some other men were the three kings.  A small choir sang as these men---coal miners and mechanics in their modern lives-- walked reverently down the aisle.  With each verse of "We Three Kings," one of them placed a gift at the manger--gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Sometimes I got to be an angel and wear one of the white robes Aunt  Brookie made.  On the night of the play, it was pinned closed, and the tinsel halo kept in place with bobby pins.   All the tallest girls stood in back while we little ones were perched right out front, smiling at the baby.

The baby Jesus was always someone's favorite doll.  Once or twice a young mother in the church had a real baby of a suitable size, but most of the time it was a stiff plastic doll.  The young mother Mary picked it up and cradled it in her arms, stretching the very limits of credibility to make herself and us imagine the real baby in a manger long ago. 

 

--Sherry Poff