My Mom, who directs the Cubbies program at our church, decided to be a little overly ambitious this year.

She decided to put on an entire Christmas play, as acted by about 20 three and four year olds.

(She told me of her grand plans right after telling me that they usually cry at just having to sing songs at their annual Christmas party.)

Also, they would only have a chance to practice their play exactly one time before the performance.

Nice.

The week before the certainly-ill-fated play was their practice week.  On the way home, I asked Ali how it went.

“It was fun.  I’m an angel.  And Nathaniel was King David, and he got to wear a GOLD CAPE that made him fly!!!”

“Oh really? Could King David fly?”

“No.  But Nathaniel could!!”

“Wait a minute…King David is in your CHRISTMAS play?”

“Yes!”

My mind wandered from Ali’s monologue as I tried to figure out: Where exactly did Mom decide to START the Christmas story??

At this point, I SERIOUSLY started to doubt my Mother’s sanity.

…But I sadistically looked forward to the night of the play.

The parents all arrived and took their seats…

And then, just to make things a LITTLE more explosive interesting, Mom had the two year old class brought in and sat on floor directly in front of the play.

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…Because two year olds are MOST patient and would NEVER cry … or interrupt a Christmas play … or steal Baby Jesus right out of the manger.

This was going to be fun.

And then it began…the Cubbies were brought in and arranged in order of their sequence in the play, which of course was quite a simple task…

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And finally, all lined up and, oddly enough, none crying (and only a few picking their noses), they were ready:

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And then it started.

Not with Mary, mind you.  Mom’s too thorough for that.

It started with Adam.  And Eve.  And the Snake.

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And she didn’t just breeze through that part of the story –  after eating the fruit, they got clothed in animal skins,

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And then Ali, in her debut acting role, excitedly and zealously banished them from the garden with her flaming foam sword.

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Then there was a rather pleased-with-himself Abraham,

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A stage-frightened-to-paralyzation Moses Marionette,

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And then the long-awaited arrival of the stately King David in his FABULOUS flying gold cape:

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(Apparently, King David did a lot of puddle-jumping in his day as well.)

And finally, after hitting all the major and minor prophets (I think she did breeze right by the books of Nahum and Habakkuk rather unfairly, though),

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Christmas finally arrived.

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Which, of course, included a star, a fabulously adorable shepherd,

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The angel and the Wise Men,

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(at which point I was completely consumed with curiosity as to whether the casting of the non-Caucasian kids as the “men from foreign lands” was purposeful on my Mom’s part or not…)

And finally, the whole cast gathered around the manger and worshipped baby Jesus.

Except for Ali, who was wholly too consumed with jealously worshipping that fabulous gold cape:

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But I have to give it to my Mom: she might have seemed overly ambitious in a colossal way, but somehow, in what most certainly HAD to have been a Christmas Miracle, she pulled it off – without a single tear shed, Baby Jesus dropped, or gold cape ripped off in a fury of jealousy.

16 thoughts on “The Rising Stars of the Christmas Story.

  1. Nice! I especially enjoyed the picture of the snake and the one of the star.

    Brett noticed at BJ’s the other day that their nativity scene had one non-caucasian as a wise man. I told him most do, because that’s how I had always seen them. Oddly, though, looking at tthe mantel right now, mine doesn’t. Of course, my nativity are all children, which is disturbing in itself…children having a baby…

  2. love it – kids are amazing – we attended a holiday party every year growing up where they would put together The Christmas story THAT EVENING with the kids who were in attendance – amazingly everyone performed and no crying!

  3. I thought the play turned out great too, and you got some really good pictures!
    I assure you that the casting of the wise men was purely by chance, one of the original wise men was sick that night, so Michelle filled in for her and Makala didn’t want to be anything and the only thing left was a wise man :)

  4. I have never laughed so hard in my life as I did reading this, your telling of the story was hilarious. Congrats to your Mom for pulling of such a task.

    Especially one that started at the beginning.

  5. I remember being cast as an angel many a year in our church’s much less ambitious Christmas story play. It’s a good role, if a little lacking in super awesome gold cape accessories :-)

  6. Wow! I am impressed with your mom’s gumption! That is certainly a huge undertaking! And starting at the beginning?? That just seems crazy, but good to hear she pulled it off! Mom’s are still superheros no matter how old we get. :)

    Our church play is this coming weekend and I am praying that K will get up there and sing her part without any problems. We’ve been working on it for weeks, but you never know with kids. :P

  7. Just felt like I should mention that I’m cracking up while reading this in my L&D room, at 4:45 in the morning. Your blog is a great way to spend the wee hours of the morning awaiting full dilation :) Thanks for the entertainment! And here’s to hoping you’re in the same place as me VERY SOON! :)

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