The Christmas Program
I was raised “in the church.” We did not, paradoxically, celebrate Christmas as Jesus’ birth knowing it could not have been on December 25th. Jesus was born when the shepherds were in the fields, which means it was not winter. But the pagan feast of Saturnalia was in winter. Somewhere along the line, someone with power decided Saturnalia should be turned into a religious celebration and they decided on Jesus’ birth as the right thing. No one knows Jesus’ real birthday, so it might have been then, went the reasoning. And, like so many odd ideas, it caught fire with people and became a big deal. It is a time when there are no leaves on the trees, the ground is brown, and the weather inclement, so let’s party.
Christmas became more than it was meant to be. It is now a hodgepodge of ideas from the religious to the decidedly carnal. But somewhere in the middle of that is where most celebrations lie. From eggnog (beginning as posset, and you don’t want any) to let’s-get-engaged, it’s a holiday that is many things to many people. Since we have lost all good sense and decorum, you get to make Christmas whatever you want it to be.
I am a complete split personality about it all. I would imagine that is true for many people. One minute, I am all Mary-Did-You-Know (but never, ever Happy Birthday Dear Jesus, which just never sits well) and the next I am would-you-like-a-cookie-that-is-sickeningly-sweet-with-icing-and-food-dye? Face it, we have all over indulged on Christmas Crack. (Thank you Dr. Graham, for a cracker from whole wheat, meant to be healthy. You would not believe what we have done to it!)
All of the weirdness of the holiday came to a head for me in sixth grade. My best friend, Donna, and I were not considered “normal.” We were pretty much allowed to do as we pleased at recess. Our teachers could see that we had been brought up to be kind and well-behaved, and that made us 6th grade oddities that they did not really know how to handle. Give them a back-talking spitfire that knew no bounds and they were at home. But hand them two young women who just wanted to live and let live and it was an instant head-scratcher. I remember recesses with the two of us sitting on the bleachers in the empty gymnasium, me reading a Classic Comic with a historical slant, and her sitting and discussing any interesting point of the story.
Back then, every school had a Christmas Program. It was a Big Deal. It paid homage to both Santa and Jesus, like a confluence of two rivers. Both seemed to flow from the heart, after all, with Good Will Toward Men. That year, Mrs. Carson was the music teacher. (She would later teach my third child. When my child insisted that we did not know when Jesus was born, Mrs. Carson deftly said, “Okay, kids, we’re singing, ‘Christ our Savior was born upon that day’!”) She was a good one to have over the Christmas Program. Our sixth-grade year, she began it with a Charlie Brown sort of ice-skating scene. Neither Donna nor I were in that. She was taller than most 6th graders and I was clumsier, so it was a good call. I’d have skated right off the tiny stage. Then, they had the creche and drummer boy. The whole drummer boy song was new and we were still wrapping our minds around its addition to a Bible story that had already run pell-mell off the page and into the stratosphere of man’s good ideas. But that year, it was the Big Ending, so there you were. Once more, neither Donna nor I were in the scene. We were not in the gay chorus, either. Because, in all honesty, they had forgotten us. That’s what you get for being a sixth grader who causes no agony or pain. What were we thinking!?
We hadn’t noticed the oversight. But the week of the whole performance, someone remembered us, and there was a bit of panic. Mrs. Carson, never ruffled, said she had a place for us. She was setting two rows of small chairs up front for the early grades and not-yet-in-school small children. Donna and I could sit with them and, if there was a need, we could manage it. My father, hearing of it and realizing we had, for all intents and purposes, been left out bought me a lovely new pastel blue dress that came with its own jacket. The little children, for their part, were absolutely rapt and caused no issues.
Then came the drummer boy. Remember him? Newer to the whole nativity scene than the ox or lamb, we still had to have a drummer boy to complete our scene of several students dressed as Mary, Joseph, angels, and a mixture of shepherds straight from their fields and magi who actually came when Jesus was a toddler and in a house, not a barn. But let us not get picky. Baby Jesus was, after all, a doll.
Our drummer boy was a kid named Bobby. Back then, we all knew that if a kid was called Bobby, you wanted to give him a wide berth. Mischief and ignorance accompanied the name. Perhaps it was just that kids called Bobby were picked on and had to be tough. I don’t know, but our Bobby fit the profile. Donna and I marveled (well, giggled behind our hands) at the choice. Did the teachers not know? Was it that he was percussion in the sixth-grade band? Could not a more fitting child beat a drum? Bobby was a big guy, by sixth-grade standards, and always ready for a fight. Later, in seventh grade, he and another boy got into a fist-fight in the hall. A small teacher, Mr. Cruse, mopped up the hall with both boys and sent them on to class. Bobby came in with blood-stained pants, looking a bit worse for wear. No one was surprised Bobby was throwing punches, though we did all sit up straighter for Mr. Cruse after that. This kid was our drummer boy?! He was their choice for the big finish while Donna and I didn’t even have a walk on?
But there, my friends, is the actual meaning of our jumbled holiday. Whether buying a big-screen television or kneeling in prayer, Jesus calls the outsiders. Come unto me, he says, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Donna and I had moved past sixth grade, by then. We matured first, having sat in Bible classes and on pews most of our lives. And I will give you rest. Bobby wasn’t restful, then or later. I hope he found the Christ child later. He needed it. We did not. Like the brother of the prodigal son, we had lived with the knowledge of peace on earth, good will towards men. Bobby, restless and willing to fight, had not. He was exactly the right choice to play for the Christ child. He was the best pick for getting the message of serenity through trust in the Lord. And we were best left to tend the children. We did not know any of that at the time. But now we do. For all of the confusion, it came out just as it should have.
Merry Christmas, in all its chaos, doubled meanings, and fractured scripture. And if you have not played the drum, it’s time.
 | ReplyForwardAdd reaction |