the second best christmas pageant ever

Yesterday our congregation had a Christmas pageant as part of our annual Christmas party (i played the part of joseph, not that it matters). I was surprised at how good it ended up being... funny, but good.

Like all Christmas pageants most of the costumes consisted of the men in bathrobes with pillowcase and bath towel hats and the women wearing scarfs over their hair. The woman who was in charge of the whole thing is originally from Ghana, so unlike most other pageants we also wore large sheets of fabric tied together at the corners and draped over our bathrobes and pillowcase hats. It added a very West African touch to the costuming.

One of the wisemen was wearing a real authentic robe and hat he bought while traveling in Jordan, one was wearing a fake golden dollar sign bling necklace around his hat, and the third didn't have a robe, so he just tied a scarf around his neck that draped down his body almost to his belt. The gold, frankincense, and myrrh were actually magic markers, hard candy, and aluminum foil.

Our angels were as follows... a bunch of little kids in plastic sheets and paper wings, one little girl in a white dress with a white feather boa for wings, one teenager with a real Jersey-girl voice and costume shop grade feather wings, and one adult in a white jumpsuit with a table cloth tied around his stomach for wings.

Even though we have a bunch of babies in our congregation, our baby Jesus was played by a doll, which in this case was Dora the Explorer. Dora was swaddled in a pillowcase, and was laying on a bed of freshly shredded real estate brochures in a wicker basket. We also had several little kids charge the stage in order to become part of the story (i'd like to think they played the parts of the little lambs).

Not a Broadway worthy performance, but one very characteristic of our little congregation. Also, to my surprise, surprisingly very much in the very spirit of the Christmas story.