Thoughts from here and there…Donkeys and Christmas Pageants
This story helps to create an appreciation of the Christmas Story.
“There’s something very special about Christmas pageants, even those in which everything seems to go wrong.
“Robert Fulghum tells about one such Christmas pageant. Trying to outdo previous years they decided to rent a live donkey for Mary to ride on. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Have you ever noticed that a lot of things ‘sound like a good idea at the time?’ The day of the pageant arrived. The congregation sang beautifully some Christmas carols and the angel choir, complete with haloes, got through their first big number ‘almost on key and in unison.’
“The time came for the grand entrance of Joseph and Mary, with Mary riding on the donkey. She was ‘carrying what later proved to be a Raggedy Andy doll.’ Then it happened. The donkey made two hesitant steps through the door of the chancel, took a look at the whole scene, and locked his legs. The donkey would not move and the entire procession came to a halt. Jerking on his halter had no effect. Neither did some wicked kicking on the part of the Virgin Mary.
“Just then the president of the trustees, seated in the front row and dressed in his Sunday best, rose to the rescue. The floor was polished cement. With another man pulling the donkey’s halter, the president of the trustees crouched at the stern end of the donkey and pushed–slowly sliding the rigid beast across the floor, inch by stately inch.
The choir director chose that moment to turn on a tape recorder, which blared forth a mighty chorus from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This scared the donkey. By this time everyone was laughing.
Organizers vowed never again to put on a Christmas pageant. ‘The memory of the laughter outlives the memory of the hassle,’ Fulghum writes of the experience. ‘And hope–hope always makes us believe that this time, this year, we will get it right.'”
Sometimes you read a story that contains such insight and understanding that it needs to be shared. Is this such a story?