A painless Christmas pageant

Michele Marr

On a recent Saturday morning, a dozen or so children pulled

one-size-fits-all Christmas pageant costumes from a wardrobe closet

at St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church and tested whether they all

fit.

Grant Fujii tussled with a pair of gleaming gold and feathered

wings as large as himself. When he finally shouldered them, he took

off his baseball cap and put it back on with its bill at the back.

The Archangel Gabriel flashed a broad smile, lifted his arms and

took flight.

A few feet away, two smaller angels in white sheet tunics and

trendy eyewear temporarily toppled their tinsel halos, stooped and

snatched them up from the floor where they had landed and

reestablished them over their heads.

Jacob Bischoff tugged on a gray, furry hood with floppy donkey

ears, got down on all fours and trotted across the room. Then he

pulled off the donkey hood and traded it for the faux fleece hood of

a sheep.

“Baa,” he rehearsed for no one in particular, which was just fine

because this pageant, by design, has no rehearsals.

Four years ago, when the Rev. Karen Wojahn came to the church as

the director of children’s and family ministries, she took a look at

the pageant and its format and said, “Why change this? It’s

wonderful.”

“It” is the parish’s Christmas Eve Painless Christmas Pageant, a

rather improvisational children’s presentation of the familiar

Christmas story conceived to make the season easier on children and

their families.

“This is a time of year when our culture demands that people be

very, very, very busy,” Wojahn said. “So for the church to say we

need you to come to three rehearsals and memorize these lines, it

just doesn’t seem like a gracious thing to do to people.”

So Wojahn doesn’t. Costumes, most fashioned from remnants of

cloth, are provided. If a parent makes a costume for a child, it’s by

choice.

Parts are assigned on what Wojahn calls a first-come, first-served

basis that eliminates quarreling and hurt feelings in case children

vie for certain high-profile parts like Mary, Joseph, the Archangel

Gabriel or the eastern star.

“I had a child this year come and ask me in October if she could

be Mary because she knows that whoever asks first gets [the part],”

Wojahn said. “Last year all the wise men were girls.”

The pageant comes together in real time on Christmas Eve.

The children gather on the patio outside, get their costumes and

put them on. Then they sit in church with their parents, some of whom

were in the nativity play themselves years ago.

“The only ones I have to do any work with are Mary and Joseph,

Gabriel, the three kings and the star,” said Wojahn, who usually asks

an older child, perhaps a teen, to be the eastern star, a part that

requires a child to navigate a star on the end of a long extension

fishing pole throughout the play.

The three kings, or wise men, come into the church first but never

arrive on the stage area in front of the church’s altar. Instead,

they continue to wander through the aisles of the church for the

duration of the pageant.

“The kings don’t come [to the Christ Child] until Epiphany,”

Wojahn said. “They come back on the morning of Epiphany [January 6]

and finally arrive at the manger scene.”

The manger scene on Epiphany is represented by a traditional

creche.

The Rev. Amy Pringle, assistant rector of the parish, will narrate

the Christmas story, which is interwoven with Christmas carols this

year. As the story unfolds, the children come forward at the proper

moment to play their parts -- shepherds, angels, donkeys, sheep or

cows.

To be sure even the youngest and most distracted children don’t

miss their cues, Pringle will also offer overt invitations to join

in: “OK, all the sheep come up. All the angels come up. Any dogs? Any

cows?”

For children too shy to don a costume, an additional invitation is

extended: “Any villagers out there who want to come? Any children?

It’s OK to bring your mom and your daddy or your grandma.”

By the time the story is told, the expanse of sanctuary in front

of the altar is filled with children, who return to sit with their

parents as the Christmas service continues until the elements of Holy

Communion are consecrated.

It’s become custom at this service to invite the children to stand

close around the altar so they can see what the priests are doing

while they prepare the elements.

“The pageant’s low key, but it’s exciting and the kids love it,”

Wojahn said. “ It’s just a wonderful, pleasant experience.”