THE CHRISTMAS ROSE

 

     Around this time every year, churches far and near are gearing up for their annual Christmas play.  The characters are always the same.  Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, wise men, shepherds, a few angels and of course a reader fill out the cast of this timeless production.  Some of my fondest memories as a child involved my participation in our church Christmas Play.  There are also some memories from that time, that I had hoped by now my brain would have caused me to forget as a protection mechanism.  I’m still waiting.
     The church we attended as children was  small, made up of mostly of the ‘faithful few’ as my mother often described the tiny congregation. Usually there were just enough children to fill out the cast of our Christmas play and as a result, most reasonable people would assume that one could rise to a leading role in said production.  That would be a wrong assumption as far as my brother and I were concerned.
     Each year the church pianist, Miss Rose, would strong arm her way into controlling every aspect of  the timeless Christmas scene.  She not only served as director, but she somehow managed to take over costumes, script, lighting, practices, music, and last but not least…discipline.  Each year, without fail, she would proclaim that she wasn’t going to put up with childish shenanigans while directing the play.  Miss Rose also taught kindergarten at the local elementary school, which sometimes caused confusion on her part.  Teenage boys usually do not respond well to bribery with crayons or a sticker that simply says ‘nice job’ inside of a gold star, but were on occasion, likely to participate in childish shenanigans.  She was a small woman in stature, slightly plump with thinning hair, had never been married and whistled slightly when she pronounced the letter ‘s’.
     As stated above, despite our small numbers, my older brother and I never achieved much success in landing one of the coveted leading roles.  We were shepherds.  Period.  The end.  Our younger sister, Carla, on the other hand had various roles over the years, finally reaching the pinnacle of success and landed the part of Mary.
     “Hurry up, we’re going to be late!  Miss Rose is assigning parts for the Christmas play, and we want to be there early to try and get a good one!” my mother eagerly said as if there was actually hope that we might get a meaningful assignment that year.
     “Oh good grief,” my older brother, Jarrett snorted.  “We’re going to be shepherds again.  It’s the same crap every year.  We stand around in one of  Mr. Lasher’s bathrobes holding a stick that dad cut in the woods with a bandana draped over our heads.”  Mr. Lasher was an elder in the church and had a wide assortment of odds and ends lying around his house, which usually came in handy when we needed props for  occasions like this.
     “I’m going for a much bigger part this year.  You should too.  I know, lets be WISE MEN!” I stated, waiting on my older and much larger brother’s response.
     “Whatever.” came the exasperated reply.  It should be noted that Jarrett didn’t have much use for  a colossal waste of time such as this.  He would have rather been fishing or hunting or doing some other activity that took place outside and was unsupervised.  Once, while a trombone player in the school band, he was required to play a short solo part in which the rest of the band stopped playing while he performed alone.  Unbeknownst to anyone, he was simply moving the slide back and forth without blowing a note.  When the band stopped playing, a eerie silence came over the auditorium while he continued to move his slide to and fro.  After several seconds of watching him pretend to play the trombone, the band simply picked up where they left off  and continued the show.  He had no use for dress clothes or musical instruments for that matter.
     We made the short drive to the church and of course we were the first ones to the dimly lit and rather chilly sanctuary.
     “Where’s ‘ol Rose?!  She was the one all fired up about this thing, now she’s not even here!”  my brother exclaimed as our younger sister, Carla, entered the sanctuary wearing a halo made of tinsel and a coat hanger.
     “Where’d you get the halo?” I enquired, slightly jealous that she’d found the wardrobe department without including us.
     “Some of us already got our parts.  Miss Rose told us in Sunday school this morning.  To bad, so sad shepherd boys,”  she said as another of our brethren, Russell Milstead, moped into the cavernous room, which echoed each time someone spoke.  Russell had been my friend for years, and he was a little worse at acting than I was, and his mother always looked very nervous for some reason.
     At that instant we heard a voice, which seemed to be coming from heaven, instructing us to sit down on the front pew and be quiet.
     “Who is that?  I heard a voice, but I don’t see anyone!  It’s almost as though God himself is talking to us!”  Russell said in a hushed tone.
     “Oh my gosh, you twit!  It’s ‘ol Rose.  You can tell by the whistle. Do you really think God is an old lady who speaks with a lisp?  That’s it, I’m telling her off this year! She‘s not bossing me around anymore,” my very agitated brother whispered, careful to not be overheard by our mother and Miss Rose.
     “Sorry I’m late.  There’s a reason we’re so small in numbers this evening.  I gave out all of the parts except the wise men and the shepherds this morning, so there was no need in everyone coming out tonight… Neil, Jarrett and Russell, you are going to be our wise men this year,”  came the voice again from the balcony behind and above us.  Miss Rose was very sneaky.  Apparently she had slipped in through the front door and crept up the back stairs to the balcony.  The small bossy lady was looking down on us holding a cardboard box with various  costumes spilling over the sides as my brother suddenly found it necessary to put me in a head lock, knocking Russell to the floor amid the tussle.  Miss Rose began her descent down the wooden stairs to the sanctuary,  appearing in front of us just as we managed to claw our way back onto the pew.  I was overjoyed to hear that I would actually be something other than a shepherd.  The joy was fleeting.
     “On second thought, I think you’d make much better shepherds.  I’m just not seeing much wisdom here,” the portly lady said with a frown on her face as she plopped the box of costumes down on the front pew and  slid her pack of  ‘good job’ stickers back into her coat pocket.
     “Now you’ve done it!  The wise men get to stand INSIDE the stable, not ten feet away!  We were so close to getting a decent part!” I quietly whined.
     Actually the shepherds were safely placed about twenty feet away.  Shepherds were usually the most ill behaved and most certainly the least talented of the entire ensemble, and their job was to stand completely still without uttering a word.
     “Why don’t we paint some shepherds on a piece of cardboard and stand them up here?  It would be the same difference!”  Jarrett said, trying to irritate me even further.  There was no way he’d ever get a pack of crayons or a sticker with that attitude.
     After a month of practices, getting yelled at, wardrobe alterations, beatings performed by two of the shepherds mother, wedgies perpetrated  by my brother to the point that my underwear would have fit Mean Joe Green, and countless whistling ‘s’ words by the director, the big day arrived.
     The pulpit served as the stable, complete with a manger stuffed full of hay, a plastic Jesus (which was one of my sister’s dolls) who’s eyes opened when it was raised up, a few strange looking farm animals, three tinseled angels, and of course Mary and Joseph along with the wise men and their gifts.  The gifts were and empty Whitman’s Sampler box, a spray painted pine cone and an empty cookie tin.
     Farther away, much farther away, stood three very impatient, itchy shepherds, complete with striped bath robes, staffs that had been growing in the woods next to our house only hours before, and heads adorned with red bandanas purchased from the local grocery store.
     “We look more like a motorcycle gang that just stepped out of the bathtub than a bunch of shepherds,” my disinterested brother whispered at the same time he saw fit to remove Russell’s bandana with his staff.
     “Stop!  People are staring at us,” Russell whispered, while trying desperately to reach his head covering that was now dangling from the end of Jarrett’s staff. 
     By this time, the pews were filled and the commander of this fiasco began to bang out ‘Silent Night’ on the piano.  My mother served as reader, partly because she did a nice job, and mainly so she could keep an eye on the unruly shepherds in the corner behind her. Russell had finally retrieved his bandana and had placed it safely back on his head, when suddenly I felt my own bandana being slowly lifted from my head to begin it’s journey skyward.  “Would you stop it!?  Mom’s watching us.  She’s going to tear us up when this is over, I just know it,”  I whispered as the other members of the troupe recited their lines to anxious spectators.
     Finally, after an excruciating forty-five minutes in itchy bathrobes, with Russell and I having to keep one hand on our heads for fear of losing our bandanas yet again, and holding our staff with the other, the show ended without the shepherds uttering a word.  At least a word that was in the script.  “Would you stop poking me with your staff!?” and “I hate your guts!”  were most definitely were not in the script.
     As the people in attendance were herded past us toward the social hall for refreshments, we could hear some of their comments concerning the scene they had just witnessed.
     “I thought the angels were just darling,” said one old lady with hair that had a slight blue tint.
     “Well, I thought the wise men looked just like they would have during the time of Jesus’ birth,” commented the blue haired lady’s friend.
     “Mary and Joseph were spectacular.  They recited their lines perfectly.   What the heck were those three boys trying to prove way over there almost out of sight?” an elderly gentleman observed.
     “Heck if I know.  I guess they have to include every kid, even the misfits.  I kept my eye on them though, didn’t look like they were all there, I was afraid that they could break bad at any minute.  I hate to say it but they’ll probably wind up in a motorcycle gang.  All the church ‘goin in the world can’t possibly straighten them out,” came the reply from another old man.
     We never got a part other than shepherds in the Christmas play.  I’m not sure why, but I’m sure it had something to do with our behavior.  Oh, and we didn’t wind up in a motorcycle gang either and my mom didn’t kill us amid many threats to do so.  But, one thing is for sure.  I do have plenty of Christmas memories,  especially all those whistling ‘s’ words.

     Hi there!  My name is Neil and I think I've found a way to share my short stories with a wide network of folks.  For years, I've documented my life in a humorous way, and now have the means to let others view my work.  Hopefully, you'll enjoy my stories and of course I welcome any comments.  As my blog states, I refrain from profanity, so feel free to let the kids read as well. 

Regards,
Neil