quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
I lost my own virginity to her [Mary]

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Surely this is blasphemy. Not to mention it's ruined Nativity plays for me now.
 

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Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on :
 
"mutual rite of passage" is quite a nice double entendre, too...

I was narrator, which with a veeerrrryyyy sssllloooowwww high-pitched adenoidal voice must have been quite something.

AG
 

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Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :
 
The only Nativity play I was in was a sunday school one when I was about six or seven. Every good part was taken by someone related to the minister so everyone else played sheep, camels etc.

Our Jesus, Mary and Joseph were all brothers and sisters. The perceived injustice led to a hatred of nepotism from that day and it took me decades to go back to church as well.
 

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Posted by Izzybee (# 10931) on :
 
I always had to be the narrator, which is why it sucks to be a Good Reader™ as a child.
 

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Posted by kentishmaid (# 4767) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Izzybee:
I always had to be the narrator, which is why it sucks to be a Good Reader™ as a child.

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This was the case in many of my school plays for me, too, despite the fact I could actually act. However, I was cast as an angel in the school nativity play (it was always done by Class 7 - the bottom class in the school). In the church one, I was Mary, which I was very pleased about. Not least because my sister was cast as the donkey...
 

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Posted by Flausa (# 3466) on :
 
Bob Two-Owls, I was similarly a victim of nepotism during a Christmas Musical. The choir director selected her son to take the lead role (which was supposed to be a part for a girl), in spite of the fact that her son couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Meanwhile I got stuck with the role of the ever-so-charming part of Grumpy Bell (which was supposed to be a part for a boy). The play (The Little Bell that Wouldn't Stop Ringing) was so dire, but the worst bit was the homemade costumes that made us all look like lampshades. It was the last Christmas play that our school performed. From there on out we only did Christmas sings.
 

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Posted by climbgirl (# 5855) on :
 
i never participated in one as either a child or as an adult. for us it was always choral concerts and, being the shortest child in the class, i somehow always got placed front and center.

also being the child with the best vocal projection, i was also given the job of 'announcing' each song with a little script that a teacher would write out for me to memorize (fortunately i was also literate at a very young age)

the closest i've come to being in a Nativity play was a few years ago when our church had the Children's department perform a skit using characters from the Wednesday night program (a 'Christianized' version of Sesame Street) since there weren't a lot of us in town, a special skit was written using some of the "bad example" characters. thus, i got to sashay onto stage in a blonde wig, black filmy dress, black fishnet stockings, black go-go boots and my thickest "Joisy" accent and have a puppet tell me the real meaning of Christmas

the congregation was MOST amused and several of my friends who had been in the audience told me that they didn't even recognize me.

to me, the funniest thing was, that for the second service that night (the 'adult' service as opposed to the 'children's ' service) i had to clean off all the make-up and change into my black velvet skirt and tom (and regular black tights) to perform 'O Magnum Mysterium' with the choral ensemble

such a change from one service to tne next!
 

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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
After kankucho's outstanding OP I feel anything I can say will flounder like a - well a flounder, really. But that's never stopped me in the past so ...

A few years back kuruman and I watched in wry amusement when at our chaotic "crib mass" one of the wise men arrived dressed as Peter Pan (and why not you might well ask), and then a sheep reclaimed her dolly and fled the church with Peter Pan running out screaming "she's stolen Baby Cheeses".

We tend not to do too much solemnity at that event, fortunately (that comes later at smells n bells midnight mass).
 

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Posted by Sister Mary Precious (# 8755) on :
 
In the grade school Christmas plays I was always an angel in the choir sitting off to the side of the main action. Never mind that I could not sing on key. This was where all the little girls went who were not blond. The blond girls were chosen as Mary or special angels on stage. The boys had all the other parts except for Mary. Am I bitter sixty years later? You bet. When I got to choose Mary for the Sunday School Christmas Play many years later she had brown hair and freckles to boot. Revenge is sweet.
 

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Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on :
 
I was invariably some sort of animal, which peeved me no end. My mother would make some ridiculous costume, supposed to make me look like a cow, or sheep or kangaroo (yes, there were kangaroos at the birth of Jesus, I'll have you know), but I usually ended up looking more like ET (technically, my mother's sewing is excellent - but her creative juices overflow sometimes and she gets carried away).

I aspired to be Mary, in the plays and in real life. For months when I was about 7 or 8, I gave up eating oranges in the mistaken belief that (a) it was an orange that caused all the grief in the garden of Eden and (b) if I, LATA, showed God my piety by shunning oranges for ever, I'd be the next Mother of God. Eventually my mother explained where I was going wrong. I never did get to play Mary.

My sister would usually get some slightly more major role than me (like a sheet-draped shepherd), although our family never made Holy Family status. That honour always went to Certain Families who ruled the local Methodist Sunday School we attended. Jesus was always played by a doll with painted on hair and freaky eyes.

My mother got jack of us being relegated to extras status and moved us to a nice Anglican church. I got animal parts there too.

Probably why my siblings and I are all heathens these days. There's only so many times a person wants to dress in bovine costume.

[ 11. December 2008, 19:34: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
 

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Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
I was a sheep when I was really little.

When I was somewhat older, I was a shepherd.

I think my dad was one of the wise men one year...
 

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Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :
 
A few years ago I was sitting next to a Japanese friend (recently arrived in Wales) as we waited for our children's nativity play to start. After studying the programme intently she leaned over to me and whispered, "So, story of Bossy Christmas Fairy, this is traditional story from Bible?"


I noticed the programme included "Come and join the celebration" and wondered whether all the Muslim children would be happy to sing "Gaze in wonder/At the Son of God who lay before them", but evidently I needn't have worried because the two Muslim boys in the front row were happily (and very clearly) shouting out the words as "the Santa God who lay before them", which very fairly reduced the words to heresy for everyone.
 

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Posted by Roseofsharon (# 9657) on :
 
I was a palm tree once
 

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Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Izzybee:
I always had to be the narrator, which is why it sucks to be a Good Reader™ as a child.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sister Mary Precious:
In the grade school Christmas plays I was always an angel in the choir sitting off to the side of the main action. Never mind that I could not sing on key. This was where all the little girls went who were not blond. The blond girls were chosen as Mary or special angels on stage. The boys had all the other parts except for Mary. Am I bitter sixty years later? You bet. When I got to choose Mary for the Sunday School Christmas Play many years later she had brown hair and freckles to boot. Revenge is sweet.

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Weird. In my primary school, only those with dark hair got to be Mary. I spend years praying for my blonde-then-mousy locks to be suitably brown by the time I reached P.7. Then when I finally got there (hair now a kind of mid-mouse) they had a carol concert that year instead.

Like you, I am bitter, I am twisted by this.
 

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Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :
 
I vaguely recall being in some kind of Christmas program at age four. I remember standing in the sanctuary with the other children, singing carols. But mostly, I remember the wonderful angel costume. (My mom was an excellent seamstress.) It was made of soft yellow flannel and felt luscious to wear. It also had wings, covered with silver glitter, but to my disappointment, they weren't ethereal at all. They were starched enough to stand up by themselves and weighed a freakin' ton. In the weeks after the performance, I would wear the yellow angel nightie (sans wings) and dance around the house.

I have no other recollections of Christmas pageants of any kind. My dad was transferred several times, which meant a new town (and church) almost every Christmas, so if there was ever a pageant, I was clueless. Given some of the stories here, maybe that's a good thing.
 

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Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Izzybee:
I always had to be the narrator, which is why it sucks to be a Good Reader™ as a child.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Thurible:

quote:

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Originally posted by Izzybee:
I always had to be the narrator, which is why it sucks to be a Good Reader™ as a child.

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Yup. Going to a "sink school" primary and being the only person in the infants able to read fluently when I was five meant that I was 'relegated' to narrator for the next six years.

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Me too. I always felt like it was a punishment for being good at the thing that school is supposed to teach you to do... I'm consoled that it's more common than I had realised

A different story - my Mum (who just retired as a primary school teacher) had a friend working in a school for children with learning / behavioural difficulties. One little boy was due to play Joseph but he was too naughty and was therefore busted down to innkeeper. The little love was plotting sweet revenge, though, and when his replacement knocked at the door of the inn and asked if there was any room, he smiled and replied "Yeah, there's loads of room. Come right in", rather flummoxing the rest of the cast

[ 12. December 2008, 08:28: Message edited by: lady in red ]
 

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Posted by kankucho (# 14318) on :
 
Excuse me, could all you poor traumatised ex-narrators actually just stop whinging, please?

Being the narrator is a very responsible job. It's like being the voice of God. You have an advance overview of the plot, and you get to reveal it to the assembled mortals, some of whom are like really old and wise and have taken the morning off work specially to hear your glad tidings.

Plus, you don't have to get all dressed up in a silly costume like everyone else.
 

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Posted by Presbyopic (# 10596) on :
 
I can't recall any recent (my kids) or ancient (me) Nativity disasters but may I step out of season to relay a little Palm Sunday event involving my now 13 year old when he was 3.

All the children are marching down the aisle singing "Hosanna Hallelujah" All except my son who was enthusiastically singing "Lasagna Hallelujah" at the top of his lungs. On that same day when praised for his singing job by another parishioner he declared to her that "Dr Seuss died to save us from our sins" For some reason "Seuss" and "Jesus" sounded the same to his little ears.
 

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Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Plus, you don't have to get all dressed up in a silly costume like everyone else.

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quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Excuse me, could all you poor traumatised ex-narrators actually just stop whinging, please?

8< snip 8<

you don't have to get all dressed up in a silly costume like everyone else.

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quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Excuse me, could all you poor traumatised ex-narrators actually just stop whinging, please?

*snip*

Plus, you don't have to get all dressed up in a silly costume like everyone else.

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I had to dress as a roman centurion - very snazzy! Anyway, I wasn't whinging. It was the people who had to listen to me droning on I felt sorry for.

Incidentally, at the start of the week, the school was closed for three days following a blizzard. The nativity play was on the day it re-opened, snow still lying, and everybody assumed that it would be cancelled and didn't send their anklebiters to school with their gym shoes. As a result Joseph and Mary stomped up the aisle wearing moon boots!

AG
 

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Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :
 
Another traumatised narrator here. I never realised there were so many of us!

Our school, being a bit posh (only a bit, mind), would put on an evening extravaganza with 2 performances on successive nights with the junior class doing a nativity and everyone else finding other ways of marking the festival. To this end, the school provided tea to keep the little dears from starving before their big moment.

This worked well until one year, while the nativity was forming a tableau, the silent night was rudely broken by a series of trumpeting farts from the assembled shepherds that really ought to have woken the baby Jesus and scared their sheep all the way to Jerusalem. Think of that scene in Blazing Saddles, and double it. In the rueful words of one teacher, "We'll know not to give them beans next year!"

Some of these stories remind me of the brilliant Flint Street Nativity. If you haven't seen it, you really should. But I understand that everything in the programme was based on true stories, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
 

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Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by lady in red:

quote:

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Originally posted by kankucho:
Excuse me, could all you poor traumatised ex-narrators actually just stop whinging, please?

8< snip 8<

you don't have to get all dressed up in a silly costume like everyone else.

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Exactly. From whence the searing sense of injustice. Little kids like dressing up. And while the cute-but-not-very-bright kids get to dress up in pretty costumes as angels and the Virgin Mary and the like, the poor narrators miss out on all the fun.

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Another perennial narrator checking in. I was pleased to get the part where I didn't need to dress up in a stupid costume though - and it got even better when I got good enough at violin / recorders / general musicianship to become an accompanying musician offstage. That meant one got to hide offstage with the grown-ups and listen to said adults chuckling at how stupid the other kids looked in their costumes. Most satisfying
 

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Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :
 
I got to play Mary twice - once at school and once at church. At church it was probably from being the vicar's daughter... Nepotism again! I was also a theologically dubious Archangel Gabriel on at least one occasion, and baby Jesus was usually played by my Tiny Tears doll.

In later years I got to supervise the Sunday School as a helper. We had an interesting year when Power Rangers were all the rage and most of the rehearsals were spent stopping Mary and Joseph kick-boxing each other. Another time one of the shepherds (aged about 3) had been awake all night with the excitement and I had to spend the whole play sitting behind him and stopping him falling off the chair as he got sleepier and sleepier.
 

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Posted by Eigon (# 4917) on :
 
I was helping out at a Christmas Fair today, and we had a nativity set for sale, all neatly contained in a cloth bag. One little girl was fascinated, and said "I was Mary last year." She found two of the Three Kings, and added slightly accusingly "Our play had shepherds in it."
 

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Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
I realize since we're all grownups now everyone may realize this, but the minister or Sunday School teacher or director casting their own child in a key role is not always solely the result of nepotism ... it's because that's the one child (or two, or three, however many that adult has) that you can be sure will show up, both for practices and performances. I just gave my own children key roles in the church nativity play and felt bad about it but I really can't handle the stress of wondering whether Unreliable But Enthusiastic Child #1 (or, more likely, Enthusiastic Child of Unreliable Parents #1) will actually be there on the day or not.

Likewise, I've always felt it's vaguely wrong that at school (where I don't work, and have no nepotistic involvement) my son has always been Joseph and my daughter Mary in the years their classes have done nativity plays, and the other key roles have also been taken by the children of educated, professional, involved parents, leaving the kids from the public housing families singing in the chorus. It seems absolutely horrible and the worst kind of classist favouritism -- and it is -- but it also reflects the teachers' expectation of which parents will take the time to learn their lines for the play and get them there on time to perform. Sadly, Christmas isn't always a time for equal opportunity.

My own worst Christmas play experience did not involve a nativity, but an elementary school play in which I confidently expected (because I was the best speaker and best actress, and also an insufferable little snot) to play the lead role of a little girl named Alice who had to choose between three Christmas trees. Imagine my shame and horror when someone else was chosen for Alice because I was too tall, and I was forced to play the Tall Tree.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
What a lovely set of stories! I was one of the good reader brigade, but I had to be the Angel Gabriel (wings and all, plus National Health round glasses) because I was the only one who could remember all the words.
 

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Posted by Roseofsharon (# 9657) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Eigon:
I was helping out at a Christmas Fair today, and we had a nativity set for sale, all neatly contained in a cloth bag. One little girl was fascinated, and said "I was Mary last year." She found two of the Three Kings, and added slightly accusingly "Our play had shepherds in it."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eigon:
And Baby Jesus was lurking right at the very bottom with a small sheep.

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