The (never ending) Christmas Pageant story

In those days after Thanksgiving, a decree went out from the nativity pageant director that all children who dreamed of being angels and shepherds (and their parents who dreamed of their offspring being these things as they had been before them) should not be registered but should simply show up at 10 a.m. sharp for the one and only pageant rehearsal on a gray Monday morning inside the looming and lofty chasm of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Sumter Street in downtown Columbia.

All 50 or so children went to be practiced because, as I said, their parents were practiced before them and as rites of passage go, being part of a Christmas pageant and bearing up while wearing hot, itchy costumes with halos hanging down and wings falling to one side and someone stepping on the donkey’s tail and another one suddenly having to go to the bathroom, well, you get my gist.

So lo, the gentle but firm authority of the pageant director — one “Miss Arney” Love, in her 27th year of being in charge of the production — shown round about them and they were gathered together and it was said that the first thing to be done was to decide who was going to be who.

Now Miss Arney brought these youngsters good tidings of great and genderless choices.

“You can be anything you want. You can be townspeople, angels, shepherds, sheep. Boys can be angels and girls can be shepherds.”

Now these children, getting sort of fidgety, were not sore afraid but somewhat determined to either be angels or shepherds; a multitude of heavenly little hands raised for both parts.

So lo, when Miss Arney saw this, she made known to all the children that it was “easy to fall into the angel rut” and that it was “nice to do something different.”

Like be townspeople.

Now all who heard it were not particularly impressed with what Miss Arney had told them and thus there were a lot of children in that region who simply were not sold on being townspeople, even though Miss Arney gave it her best shot by saying it meant you would have more time in the footlights since the townies processed in first and recessed out last.

Finally three brave little girls volunteered to be townspeople and the appreciation of the pageant director shown round about them. Talk about good tidings of great joy!

Moving on, you may wonder who got to be Mary and Joseph. It was explained that several teenagers, who had come up through the ranks of the pageant tradition — probably being townspeople at some point — would play those roles.

Now by this time at least one or two noses had been picked and some body parts had been scratched. There was also copious wiggling and a glittery halo fell to the floor and one little boy decided he did not want to be whatever he was supposed to be and went to sit with his mama in a wooden pew, but the pageant director who, as I said, has been doing this for a long time, maintained blissful order and the music from the grand old organ began and the practice proceeded.

As promised, the brave three townspeople led the parade — walking maybe just a little too fast from the back of the church to the front but the whole way smiling little toothy smiles that would eventually require braces but for right now were just right.

Then came the shepherds, a motley crew of those not bothered by wearing funny hats on their heads and probably hoping to wield wooden crooks with which they could poke at each other when it came time for the real deal a few days down the line.

And at the back of the pack, the angels, happy to have held out for being the ones who got to wear the wings.

Once assembled at the front of the church, the organ music subsided and Miss Arney clapped her hands high in the air.

“It was just perfect!” she announced.

And when the children saw this, and when they heard this, they made known to each other what had been told them by elbowing each other in the sides and by smiling and, in the case of one little angel, doing a pirouette.

So joy to a practice well done by a dutiful pageant director.

Joy to these children who, when they grow older and become parents, will make their own children go to the bathroom one more time before the pageant begins.

And joy to you.

And yes, joy to the world.

Salley McAden McInerney is a local writer whose novel, Journey Proud, is based upon growing up in Columbia in the early 1960s. She may be reached by emailing salley.mac@gmail.com.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 9:02 PM.