A heavenly Christmas memory

It wasn’t that long ago that my December was a frantic round of costume making, line learning and general dashing from pillar to post. These days, with only one child in primary school and my Nativity days far behind me, that month of tinsel-bedecked craziness is just a memory.

One thing which sticks in my mind, however, and has floated back to the surface this week, is a Christingle service around 8 years ago. My friend Judith and I were in the midst of running a ladies’ outreach called Pamper Club, I ran Thursday toddlers and I had three young children. I also worked part-time and had no family near by to help me. Naturally, it seemed like a splendid idea to plan and put on the Christingle to end all Christingles.

Our vision was to show everyone that our church wasn’t an exclusive club, a place only certain people could go, but a warm, open, welcoming space full of love. To this end, we started to cast our young performers. Before too long, we had an excitable flock of shepherds, an innkeeper, a fair few Wise Men, Mary and Joseph and so many angels that we had to divide them into three groups according to age, from 3 to 11. There were around 25 of them, a true heavenly host.

We wrote a script, chose a mixture of carols and songs and started rehearsing. It was perhaps inevitable that our carefully thought-out performance didn’t quite go to plan. At the dress rehearsal, the day before Christmas Eve, we got the first text from the mother of a Wise Man who had been felled by the sickness and diarrhoea bug sweeping the village. Head lice broke out amongst the heavenly host.

We wanted the children to enjoy themselves but we also wanted everything to be well organised and calm. We assigned a mother to each group, a wrangler who attended to toilet trips, last-minute costume issues and general confidence. The heavenly host, smelling faintly of tea tree oil, had three. All was well with the abbreviated group of Wise Men. However, we’d forgotten about the bad blood between the innkeeper and one of the shepherds. In the middle of “Away in a Manger”, a full-on fist fight broke out by the font. By the end of the rehearsal, twitching slightly, we were as sure as we could be that this would be an unforgettable Christingle.

The next day, I was awoken by the first of several apologetic texts. A shepherd had been sick in the night. Another Wise Man had developed a fever. Several of the heavenly host were complaining of tummy aches. Joseph had spent most of the night on the toilet. In a last-minute battlefield promotion, my eldest son was persuaded to scramble into the well-worn Joseph costume and tea towel headgear. Lavish bribes were applied.

Armed with carrier bags full of tinsel halos, gold cardboard crowns and heavily annotated scripts, we made our way up to church. Lessons duly learned from the dress rehearsal, an extra mummy wrangler was on duty with the shepherds, keeping the innkeeper occupied to avoid a repeat of the fisticuffs by the font. The stage was up, the sound desk switched on and the Christmas tree illuminated.

The church was filled to capacity. That mixture of abject fear and soaring hope you only get working with lots of children at Christmas time was swirling around us like a golden mantle. The vicar stood up to deliver his welcome speech and we were off.

No-one was sick. No-one wet themselves, although one of the smaller angels departed halfway through “Hark the Herald Angels” to go to the loo and never came back. The enormous feathery wings attached to my daughter's costume smacked her fellow angels around the chops every time she moved. The innkeeper kept his hands to himself. The heavenly host sang “Away in a Manger” and the church was suddenly full of that special, hushed magic we all yearn for at Christmas. It was beautiful.

Hunched between the piano and the Christmas tree, mouthing lines at the angels, I watched as they sang the well-known words, the soft candlelight reflecting off their smiling faces. The Wise Men trundled up from the back of the church and plonked their gifts unceremoniously in Joseph and Mary’s laps. The shepherds milled around while the innkeeper eyeballed them suspiciously. For a few minutes, it seemed possible that there might be peace on earth and that goodwill was achievable for all of us.

I still see those children around the village, mostly teenagers now. Some come to church from time to time, but most don’t. Did that hour of singing and telling the story of the baby born to a young mother while angels sang sink into their hearts? Maybe. It’s not for me to know. But the memory of our Christingle hasn’t faded. This Christmas, as I watch a new generation of children speaking and singing those beautiful words, I hope that perhaps in our uncertain and challenging world, the star that guided everyone to Bethlehem two thousand years ago might scatter some hope on us too.

Merry Christmas, everyone.