Guest Author - Michelle Taylor

Many years ago I had the privilege to direct the children’s choir at the church I attended. It was at times frustrating, exhausting, and made me want to hit my head up against the wall. It also made me want to smile, laugh, gave me at least 30 hugs a week, and a warm fuzzy feeling inside whenever this tiny child would run up to me and go “Hey Miss Michelle!”. There is nothing better in this world than being loved by a child. And I still get that warm feeling today when some of those little kindergarteners with lisps and missing teeth now run up to me at high school football games and will still throw their arms around me – though they are now taller than I am.

Christmas of 2003 was the first time I ever got to work with the kid’s choir. It was a very last minute thing. The previous director had suddenly come down with severe back problems and could not stand to direct. AND the preschool choir director’s husband was transferred, so there were 2 blank spaces. Up until that point I had just been the assistant to the preschool choir, now suddenly I had to combine both choirs and come up with something for Christmas.

My solution to this was to do something very simple – an old fashioned Christmas pageant. We simply had the children dressed up as the manger scene characters, had 4 of the older children read the Christmas story straight from the Bible, and sang traditional Christmas carols.

The funniest thing was, the congregation loved it. It was simple, it was sweet, it was the unadulterated story of Jesus’ birth. There were no crazy bells and whistles. There were no divas fighting for the limelight. We did have one shepherd knock Joseph upside the head with his staff, one angel had to go potty every five minutes, and one of the wise men was obsessed with making sure that every piece of straw was on the hay bale and not on the floor. But these things just made it more precious.

Below I’ve included the scriptures and carols that were performed in case you might wish to have your own pageant at home. You don’t have to have all the characters. But it makes the Christmas story lots of fun and very memorable, especially for small children.

A Christmas Pageant
Luke 1:26 - 38
“Good Christians All Rejoice”
Luke 2:1-7
“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”
Luke 2:8-14
“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”
Luke 2:15-16
“Silent Night”
“Away in a Manger”
Luke 2:17-20
“O Come All Ye Faithful”
“Happy Birthday Jesus”

Have a Blessed Christmas!