Simple pleasure of Nativity play still melts my heart
IT’S the week before you break up for Christmas. You’re in the school hall, sitting cross-legged on the floor with your friends.
All of you are excited. Across the room there’s the hum of nervous chatter among your gathered parents. Out of their sight, teachers are issuing last-minute instructions, adjusting swaddling bands, and straightening halos.
It’s time for the school Nativity play – that annual ritual of triumphs, tears and tinsel, Little Donkeys and dropped baby Jesuses.
I reckon most of us have a similar memory. I had a 1970s education, so mine was a traditional Nativity. Just the classic cast: Mary, Joseph, a donkey, an innkeeper, his wife, Gabriel, three kings, a handful each of angels and shepherds and someone to carry the star.
Everyone else was in the chorus or among the ‘orchestra’ of triangles, tambourines, and what I suppose was a little Foley artist using coconut shells for the donkey’s clip-clop.
I have mixed feelings about modern everyone-gets-a-part Nativities. I’m a bit of a traditionalist, but I was one of those kids who never, ever scored an on-stage Nativity role. No matter how hard I tried, looking as enthusiastic as possible, smiling manically, I was never picked.
There were plenty of roles for boys who could play Joseph, the innkeeper, the shepherds, or the kings. Girls, less so. I wasn’t serene enough for an angel, or demure enough for Mary. Besides which, I was one of the tallest girls; only one of the boys was taller.
While I saw nothing wrong with Mary towering over her betrothed, the casting director did.
Schools now open the Christmas story to a huge cast. And, surely, it must be better to throw in the odd rat, or random lobster (doesn’t everyone love Love Actually?), than opt for the modern reality of 1st Midwife or 2nd Doula.
Our little ones have so much to catch up on. Last year, many Nativities fell foul of the pandemic and were performed behind closed doors or cancelled entirely. At this point (so far, touch wood, here’s hoping) the Government is permitting school and early years Nativity Plays to go ahead. Or at least allowing each establishment to make its own choice on the matter. And whether to allow guests to attend.
If safety can be assured, then I really hope they do because, as much as I like to bemoan my lot in Nativity plays, they were one of the highlights of the year, and I was always utterly caught up in their magic. It makes me sad to think that a whole generation of youngsters could be missing out on this ritual altogether.
You’d have to be a stern soul indeed not to be reduced to some level of teary-eyed nostalgia at the thought of all those little ones just waiting for the chance to shine in front of their families and friends.
I have only to hear a few bars of Little Donkey and I turn into a melting puddle of goo. Playing second fiddle (or, in my case, third triangle) saved me from any trauma because it’s my favourite children’s carol, bringing back so many happy memories of singing with my friends, and of sitting on Grandma Buckler’s knee as she played that tune on the piano, just for me.
I don’t believe the results of a survey, taken a few years ago, that claimed that children who snaggled the “big” parts in the Nativity, are destined to be higher achievers in adult life. I do, however, suspect that some parents are guilty of pushing their children to achieve Nativity greatness, just in case.
I know plenty of successful adults who sat cross-legged beside me behind the scenes or who even, whisper it gently, were one of the naughtier kids whose attention spans were so short that their acting threatened to break into improvisation, and so had to stay under tight teacher supervision.
Whatever our role, we all got to join in the songs. And, let’s be honest, that’s the best bit.
Call it the Nativity play or the Christmas concert, no one is really expecting it to a sophisticated production like the one in Love Actually. It’s meant to be a simple pleasure, not a West End production.