Oh, thank goodness she was an angel in the Christmas Pageant this year.
Did you not know this was important? Then, let me repost this story from a Christmas past, and you’ll understand:
Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like a toddler pitching a fit in the middle of the nativity scene.
It happened on Christmas Eve when the Fairly Odd Family all went to our kind, affirming, open-minded Unitarian Universalist Church for their ‘family-friendly’ 4pm service. Belly and Jilly were in the ‘Cherub Choir’ which means they got up twice to sing—a rousing version of Jingle Bells and a somewhat confused version of the Twelve Days of Christmas (as one dad said, “They are great until Day Eight; after that, it all falls apart”).
After the Choir finished, the Nativity Play began. Other than the parts of Mary & Joseph, all of the other parts in the play are filled as the play is read. For instance, when the story got to the part about the star in the sky, the minister would ask for someone to volunteer to be a star. That person would run to the back of the church, grab their star ‘prop’ and saunter down the aisle to the ‘manger’ at the front of the church.
Jilly and D acted quickly, running to the back early in the play to become a donkey and a sheep, respectively (I even teared up to see little D toddling down the aisle with his ‘sheep’ poster held before his little body). Belly, being the oldest and having done this before, waited and waited until she heard these words: “We need five angels”.
With that, she and four other girls tore to the back of the church and were dressed in the mother load of props: a white sheet, fairy wings and an angel’s halo. They then floated, er, walked, to the front of the church and were then ushered to stand up in the pulpit high above our heads.
By then, I had crawled on my hands and knees to where Jilly and D were sitting, to make sure they remained quiet and to keep them from knocking over the large candle displays around them. I found Jilly in a major snit.
“I want to be an angel!”
“Yes, dear, but look! You are an adorable donkey!”
“I hate him!” (bonks mommy in head with donkey placard) “
“Don’t bonk mommy. You can be an angel next year. Now shhhhh, we need to listen to the minister.”
“WAIL! SOB! ALL THE NOISES THAT PARENTS DREAD TO HEAR IN QUIET PLACES WHERE THERE ARE LOTS OF OTHER PEOPLE WATCHING YOU AND YOUR WAILING CHILD!”
Her cries were pitiful. She was just crushed that she was not an angel like her sister. She was just. . .a donkey.
I did my best to comfort her and, once we were home, she immediately changed into a fairy costume which seemed to cheer her up a bit.
Fairly Odd Father summed up the entire fiasco the best, though, on Christmas Day when we were telling the story to the rest of our family. I had just mentioned that the Director of Religious Education had come over to me during Jilly’s meltdown to tell me not to worry; every year a child or two lost it during the Nativity Play.
“Yeah”, interrupted Fairly Odd Father, “there is always some jackass that thinks they’re an angel”.
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