Festive Note - Nativity Plays

[Martha]

Eloise described a particularly unpleasant sermon-leader and finished 
with:
> It still makes me mad. I was strongly associated with the church at 
the time 
> and felt tarred by the unwelcoming attitude of this man of the 
cloth. 

Martha:

The guy who led our Christmas services was the exact opposite. Bless 
him, he tried ever so hard to be cool and trendy and down with the 
kids, but we still loathed him. Once he brought in a terrier to help 
illustrate some point (can't remember what exactly) and - guess 
what? - it did a poo on the floor, which was the greatest moment in 
the history of the school's Christmas services. Also, the vicar's 
catchphrase was "Jesus is the reason for the season", which Destiny's 
Child have appropriated on the sleevenotes of their Christmas album. 

Eloise:

> I've had two Marys. My youngest was Mary last year. She looked 
perfect. 
> Except that she was *completely* disengaged from the action, 
ignored baby Jesus 
> totally (the fact that she'd been positioned bizarrely *in front 
of* the manger 
> didn't help!) and spent most of the time looking behind her at the 
action, or 
> engrossed in conversation with the shepherd "boy" who was the star 
of this 
> particular production.

Martha:

Two Marys in one family? Not fair. When my class did the Nativity 
when I was 5, all my friends got to be angels, with tinsel halos and 
pretty frocks, and I had to be the scabby innkeeper's scabby wife. 
The kid playing the innkeeper always had a trail of thick, gunky snot 
on his face/sleeves and I was most disgusted by the "husband" I had 
been lumbered with. I had to wear a brown dress and my part in the 
play consisted of pointing at the stable. My costume was hung up in 
the cloakroom with the label "Martha - wife", and I believe this 
played a pivotal role in shaping my feminist attitudes. Wife, indeed!

Eloise:

> There's always the child with the very loud and often tuneless 
voice who you 
> can hear above everbody else. There's the child who inevitably gets 
overcome 
> by the whole occasion and has to be removed, sobbing from the stage 
or else 
> shows off appallingly. Robins and snowmen with cushions pushed up 
their jumpers 
> (as in sweaters) that inevitably start to slip and have constantly 
to be hoiked 
> surreptitiously (or not!) back up into place. There's always at 
least one 
> child wearing their tights (that's panty hose) back to front 
(usually a boy).

Martha:

Not forgetting, of course, the kid who gets to "play" the coconut 
halves during "Little Donkey" (or similar song involving donkey) and 
at some point holds them up to look like a bra. OK, maybe that was 
unique to my primary school where we once had a kid set fire to the 
toilets, but that's another story.

~ Martha (who quite likes Christmas but HATES Christmas pop songs)