It Was A Strange, Bewitching Sight...

Once upon a time, I was the littlest shepherd with the biggest part in the annual Christmas pageant at church. The pageant had probably been going on for about fifty years when I participated in it the first time. It was wonderfully exciting, and the whole town turned out for it!

We had old velvet Mardi Gras costumes for the wise men's robes, white choir robes, halos, and cardboard wings outlined in silver tinsel for the angel choir where we (I, too, was an angel for several years) stood on risers and glorified God, while Mary and Joseph had their own special attire as did Herod. The shepherds were adorned in everything from striped to foulard bathrobes (every dad in church got a new one for Christmas because they were raided for the shepherd entourage, and no mother wanted their shepherd to look shabby). Our local high school English teacher was the narrator, and she always wore the strangest getup (sort of a combination nun's habit/WWI Red Cross uniform cum Holy Land robe and head piece). One of her Victorian relatives had written the play in wonderful Shakespearean rhyme, and the parts were no small thing to learn: "From the dewy gloaming, Till the dusk of day, Onward, Onward, roaming, Brothers, haste! Away!"

The night of my biggest debut followed several years of servitude in the angel choir. It was hot as all get out in the angel choir on those risers, and invariably, someone would get a combination of heat stroke and stage fright and then faint or throw up on the burgundy carpet below (the narrator's nephew for one). Somehow, life among the lowly shepherds was a welcome relief after that! ;-)

The year came that I was what was known as the Littlest Shepherd, but there was a catch. The Littlest Shepherd had the longest part. So being the dutiful mother she was, Mama drilled me like an army sergeant every day after school, week in and week out, for months. I knew that part backwards and forwards. And it was a good thing because I had been forewarned that I could not embarrass my older teenage sister by messing up in front of her English teacher who had also taught my other older married sister who was nineteen years older than I! Both were sitting in the audience.

I had all the confidence in the world that I could do it, and I rose to speak. The problem was my parents were on the back row where they ALWAYS sat because my father had a tendency to fall asleep in church. As he was a public servant, my mother didn't think it wise for him to embarrass himself (actually, HER) by snoring through whatever service happened to be going on at the time, so the back pew it was. He couldn't help his quasi-narcolepsy as he was partially deaf in one ear, or at least that was the excuse my mother gave for him. ;-)

Anyhow, my prompter aka Mama was waaaaaaaaaay in the back of the church, and as I looked out over the sea of faces on pageant night, I couldn't find hers! I got to the part about "save when a dog's quick bark was heard" and froze in utter terror, my mind a total blank. All the parents and guests were leaning forward and smiling, trying to encourage me, but the words would not come! I was paralyzed with stage fright. Then, horror of horrors, the narrator began to recite my part, and I knew I was dead meat with her and my teenage sister! Fortunately, I can laugh about it now (I ended up being a speech major in college), but man oh man, I was terror-stricken at the time. So much so that I can still remember that part DECADES later. LOL! Proof positive follows, only the parts are now being played by Annie and Company. To wit:

It was a strange bewitching sight...



The Shepherds watching through the night,

Had gathered 'round their watch fires bright,



All else was darkness, save on high

A golden star shown in the sky,



Soft breezes breathed a lullaby,

Safe in the care of their Father's keep,

The little lambs were all asleep [just pretend that they are!],



No sound disturbed the silence deep,

Save when a dog's quick bark was heard [the fateful phrase!],



Or the twitterings of a wakeful bird [a magpie, perchance?],



Or shepherd lads exchanged a word,



Till came that burst of glory bright

When angels clad in sparkling white



Sang songs that charmed the listening night,

Listen sweet echoes seem to ring,

And though unseen, they still do sing

Glory, all glory, to the King!



The End.

Lovingly,

Mrs. Magpie (Sheila) :-)

P.S. Unfortunately, numerous Hershey Kisses were harmed in the making of the tinsel for the angel wings . We beg the reader's forgiveness as well as that of our waistline! ;-)