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Please Hold the Chicken
Rebecca Sicree on the Childish Interruptions That Make Up Real Life
Our daughter Helena said her first word during the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve. It was baa.
I couldn't blame her. Our parish Christmas pageant takes place during the Children's Mass. There are no speaking parts. During the reading of the Gospel, costumed children process down the aisle and take their places in a silent tableau in front of the altar. A flutist plays What Child Is This?, parents take pictures, and then the children rejoin their families in the pews. It is all very tranquil . . . except for the sheep.
The shepherds are played largely by first and second grade boys, too young to play Joseph or Wise Men but already too old to wear those girlish white robes with angel wings. (If the angels, like St. Michael, could dress like Roman legionaries, it would be a different story.) The sheep, on the other hand, are played largely by middle school girls (middle school boys never volunteer for Christmas pageants), who know from years of experience that the best, the absolute best part in the Christmas pageant is the one that lets you hide under a wooly cape, crawl down the aisle in your best dress, and baa during the Gospel. The result is that the sheep, even on hands and knees, are so big next to the shepherds that they look like escapees from the cave of the Cyclops.
Naturally, the shepherds are intimidated by the sheep. They cannot defend themselves: their parents have told them, very strictly and repeatedly, that their crooks are not to be used as weapons. (Shepherds' crooks are weapons, of course, which every boy recognizes immediately. This is why he wants to be a shepherd.)
The giant sheep are not intimidated by anything. They do not believe that the ban on speaking parts applies to them. Sheep, after all, do not speak. So I should not have been surprised when one of them charged up to our pew, baaed in Helena's face, then galumphed back down the aisle.
It was her older sister. Delighted, Helena dropped to her hands and knees and tore off after her, bleating enthusiastically. I had to lunge to catch her before she reached the rest of the flock in front of the altar, an impromptu and un-costumed walk-on.
The Bleating Angel
This was not the most embarrassing thing that happened to us at a Christmas pageant. Last year Mark, who was in kindergarten, was in his very first pageant. He was young and very excited about being an angel.
The pageant went according to plan at first, if you ignored Mark patting all the Wise Men on the head, perhaps to bless them. Then, during the homily, our deacon asked the children what special foods they had at Christmastime. One angel volunteered, "Snowballs!" Everyone laughed. Then our deacon added, "One of the angels baaed at me. I think next year we might need more rehearsals." Everyone laughed again, but we knew which angel it was.
Rebecca Sicree writes from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. She and her family attend Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church in nearby State College. She and her husband Andrew have ten children, six of whom are now adults.
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