The Christmas pageant at my church two years ago will not be easily forgotten. Though I was not there in person, I have heard the story recounted so colorfully on many previous occasions that I feel confident I can impart the message with some authority.
As it has every year for the past few, the traditional Christmas pageant opened with the not-so-traditional pagan ritual honoring the season and the lighting of the menorah. Mary and Joseph entered from Stage Left and travelled slowly to the center of the stage and the Inn and the Manger while the Junior Choir sang, "Mary and Joseph" ("Joseph knocked at the door / And he asked for a place to stay. / The innkeeper said, 'Not a room do I have. / Use the barn for tonight if you may.") The Friendly Beasts then entered to the strains of "Friendly Beasts," and every little child in the church (or so it seemed) was on the stage wearing some sort of costume left over from 1979 constructed at that time from leftover upholstery fabric or cotton balls. The youngest children were dressed as sheep. The youngest sheep, apparently decided that being a sheep was not the way she wanted to go with her life and decided to test out another profession: burlesque. As she sat at the front of the stage waving at her parents in the audience, the littlest sheep pulled her costume up over her head, revealing her white tights, diaper, and belly. Turning around to face backward, she wanted to make sure the audience got the full price of admission, giving a complete 360-degree view of her birthday suit.
Sometime during the sideshow, Mary gave birth to a son, and a host of heavenly angels appeared, danced, and ascended to the Heaven of the pulpit, to stand on the seats and look down upon the scene below. (Go here for a visual.)
And then Joseph vomitted.
Mary was covered. The baby Jesus was covered (this year a plastic doll instead of a live baby--luckily). The Friendly Beasts all held their noses, and some started to cry. As the smell of vomit wafted up into the pulpit, the angels--arms outstretched to the heavens and until that point oblivious to what was going on below--started to look woozy, and one ran down the stairs and out the side door, right hand over her mouth, left trying to hold in her stomach.
And then the sound of laughter filled the meetinghouse. It was my mother. To the great consternation of her best friend, she could not stop laughing. (This is where I get it from.) Several others around her began to titter until the ripple of giggling blossomed into a full-blown monsoon of laughter. Half the congregation was laughing; the other half was angry at the first half for laughing. When our canoe capsized in the freezing water of an April river in Vermont, my dad yelled, I cried, and my mom laughed. It's how she deals with situations.
The next year the same kid played Joseph and made it through the show unscathed and without becoming sick. Hopefully the curse has been erased--the only remaining signs the brown "barf stains" that Sally pointed out on Mary's robe last year.
Currently reading: Imponderables by David Feldman ("So, that explains it.")
Recently watched: Matchstick Men (figured out how it was going to end long before it did) and Sherman's March by a current Harvard film professor (interesting but a little long for my taste)
Currently listening to: The Visit soundtrack (absolutely gorgeous)
Renting tonight: De-Lovely (I'm obsessed with this soundtrack)
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