Christmas pageant

This year I helped out with the Christmas pageant again, as co-director. This is about the fifth year I’ve worked with the pageant. I was the director/ head honcho for about three years, and assistant for the last two or three, though last year I did next to nothing as there was a lot of uncertainty as to whether we’d be here. As it turned out we weren’t, and though we were around during the lead-up to the pageant I was so focused on when we’d get to Ethiopia that I didn’t have much head space for pageant rehearsals! (Also as it turned out, last year’s pageant ended up being delayed owing to a huge snowstorm, and though it was early January when it was finally performed, we were still in Ethiopia anyhow.) (Then there was the year, 2005, when I missed the big show because I was in the hospital for hip surgery…)

I enjoy working with the kids, and while it’s a lot of work and every year I think I don’t want to do it again, it’s more than worth the effort when I see the kids do their thing on stage, and every year it turns out just fine and everyone is thrilled.



This year we did a show called “The First Leon,” in which a boy named Leon (Noel spelled backwards) is so keen on being in the pageant he tries out for every role, even the angels (who are all girls). But he doesn’t get a part, not even the tiniest one. The director, in a weak moment, tells Leon he can be the understudy for the innkeeper. Of course, the boy playing the innkeeper does get sick, so Leon is called on to fill in. During the actual pageant, one of the other boys, who is playing Joseph (and who doesn’t really like Leon) tries to confuse him by improvising some lines and insisting that he and Mary really, really need a place to stay. After several times repeating his one line, “No room,” and as Mary and Joseph turn away, Leon-the-innkeeper calls after them to stay, that they can have his room. He makes room for the Christ Child, and in so doing becomes the star of the show.

The Youth Group also did a readers’ theatre of the Christmas story. Here are our good friends AlleyCat, Bigger D, and H in their respective roles as Mary, Joseph, and angel.