Festive Note - Nativity Plays

[junediamanti]

This is what we call the kids school play that depicts the Nativity, 
in the UK.  It's getting closer to Christmas, the shops here are 
full of it, early Festive Filks have been spotted, several people 
near where I live have the most vulgar and over the top external 
Christmas lights on their houses, so...

Nativity Plays.  As a parent, I feel they often provided some of the 
funnier experiences when my daughter was younger and I like to hear 
any amusing recollections other people have.  Here's some of mine:

1.  PC.  Yes, indeedy.  Though the Christmas Nativity play is rooted 
in the Judeo-Christian tradition, often schools jump through 
ecumenical and pantheist hoops to engage all the children in the 
school and I've seen some very funny attempts to "include" Islamic 
and Hindu children here.

2.  Everyone must have a part.  This is one of my favourite 
aspects.  Schools don't like competitiveness anymore.  In my day, it 
was a capsule play with simply the best actors picked for the key 
parts, lesser actors got to be the donkey's back end, and the rest 
formed the choir.  Now everyone has to be in it, and noticeable by 
their loving parents.  In the last one I attended there was a 
fantastic musical number performed by a troup of dancing Christmas 
puddings - though I have to say, had anyone attempted to cast MY 
daughter as a dancing Christmas pudding - we would have been 
having "words" afterwards.  A recent example I heard of included 
dancing lobsters. Now where on earth did that idea come from?

3. Shepherds.  In our tradition the Shepherds' parts seem to be 
exclusively the province of the local urchins.  Small boys wearing 
checked tea-towels on their heads and looking like the smallest 
chapter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.  When I last went, 
in addition to that, the shepherds carried crooks which seemed to 
have been constructed by broom handles and bent coathangers covered 
in paper.  They had plainly been using these as fighting weapons 
before coming on stage because they were all bent completely out of 
shape.

4. Small kids never mind their parents being present in the audience 
and will cheerily wave to them regardless of whether they are making 
a speech at that time.

5.  Great speaking.  I heard the following at my last nativity 
play.  It helps if you are familiar with the Geordie accent  (that's 
north east england for you foreigners!) but phonetically rendered 
here goes.  Enter Chief Shepherd, who glares at Mary and Joseph, 
having waved for some time to his mum and dad who are somewhere in 
the audience:  "Thu-aingil-toldus-tocomeandsee-thebabycheesus"  This 
is said at maximum speed and is all one word. Try saying aloud the 
get the local colour. 

6.  All time favourite and this was a more modern approach:

    Joseph comes home from work and says to Mary:  "How's our Jesus 
been then?"

Mary:  "He's been a right little b****r all day."

Right - lets get it clear I'm not sneering.  I watched everyone of 
them laughing and crying at the same time and wouldn't have missed 
any of them for the world.  Dancing Christmas puddings included.


June