Floating Fur Christmas Pageant

In the comments to the post on the lavish Christmas pageant at First Baptist in Ft. Lauderdale,

Paul said...

Ah, Mimi, you mean you've never had the "pleasure" of going with relatives to a church that looks like a school auditorium to witness a "living Christmas tree"?

Actually, although I have never seen a "living Christmas tree" pageant in an auditorium-type church setting, I have seen more than one Christmas pageant in an Assembly of God church, which looked like a school auditorium. It has a massive sound system installed on a platform in the rear of the church. Perhaps the style of the building we worship in really shouldn't matter that much, but I have a bias against auditorium-type churches. Mea culpa.

Two of my grandchildren attended the nursery school run by the church, simply because it was one of the best in town. The workers were kind and loving, and the church paid their employees well beyond minimum wage and gave them raises, so they were able to keep good people when they hired them. From ages two to five, the children were taught Bible stories, but not much indoctrination beyond that.

Of course, the obligatory sheet about the dangers of Halloween was sent to the parents, but beyond that I saw nothing objectionable that would affect the children adversely. My granddaughter learned to read at the age of three at the nursery school. The pastor of the church lived a few houses down from us at one time, and he seemed to be a sensible man within the constraints of serving as a pastor in an Assembly of God church.

My granddaughter was two years old for the very first Christmas pageant we attended there. I don't remember what she was supposed to be, but she was dressed in a fur-trimmed costume with hat. Maybe she was a lamb. After the two year olds were on the stage, my granddaughter promptly took off her hat and lay down on the floor on her side, propped on her elbow, to enjoy the proceedings. Someone finally got her up, and once she was standing she began plucking the fur off her costume and throwing it in the air where it floated, and the other children began to try to catch the floating fur. It was a sight to behold as the main characters in the pageant tried to carry on with acting their roles. My now ex-daughter-in-law was mortified and scowling, but the rest of us were doubled over with laughter.

My grandson, who is now seven went to that nursery school until he was five, and we attended several more Christmas pageants there, but never one that was as much fun as the first.