In the last three weeks of term the Curate and I attended three school Christmas productions. The first one we attended was performed by the morning nursery.
The Engineer was dressed as an elf and had to work in Santa’s workshop, rather gruesomely using a saw on the teddy bear he was carrying. The nursery children enthusiastically sang along to Bob the Builder’s ‘Can we fix it? Yes we can!’ as the Engineer and his friends ratherly sullenly appeared on the stage area. The Engineer looked like he felt it very much beneath his dignity to perform for us.
This elf looks cheerier than the Engineer did
As well as Santa and the elves, we had a snowman dance, a Christmas tree dance and and a full nativity scene, complete with a laughing angel and Mary broadly smiling from ear to ear. The children sang ‘Happy Happy Happy Birthday to the Baby Jesus’ and the nursery teacher reminded us that the Baby Jesus is the most important thing about Christmas. There were children of many different colours, nationalities and religions in the show and everyone there was very pleased with the performance.
My friend Sunshine, who lives in a beautiful university town, has a daughter who is also in a nativity play this Christmas. Her school, however, thought it should send an apology and explanation, I guess because they were concerned that parents would object. They reminded the parents that the nativity play happens only rarely, and asked for the parents to indulge them this year.
What a blessing to have kids in a church school in a happy city, where many cultures are able to celebrate Christmas without anybody feeling the need to apologise.
The Vicar's Wife 
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