Friday – Live Nativity Scene: Parental Discretion Advised

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the live nativity scene my church youth group used to stage when I was a teenager, and how when we weren't standing still trying to look holy and pious, we were talking trash. This isn't news to anyone who remembers being a teenager, and one of the people who stopped to admire our little living still life in front of our church remember it very well, but underestimated how depraved we really all were.

 Twenty some-odd years ago, things weren't as fancy as are now. These days, when I see a Santa Clause in a shopping mall, he will inevitably have a real snowy-white beard and possibly a real belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly. When I was growing up, we were content to see a youngish guy wearing a fake beard secured to his face by a white piece of elastic, and an obvious pillow pilfered from his own bedroom stuck under his cheap red suit. Now, I see nativity scenes put on my mega churches, with live sheep and camels and professionally-sewn costumes, all gathered around a real infant who hopefully isn't making too much of a fuss. There may not be a virgin (besides the baby) or a wise man in the bunch, but they all sure look the parts. In my day, people were content to see a group of bored teenagers wrapped in bed sheets, surrounded by flat painted sign-board animals, all gazing with as much reverence as they could muster at a Rub-A-Dub Dolly wrapped in swaddling clothing .

When a car would pull up, we would shush each other and stash our Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate behind one of the bales of straw we were using as props, and try to look holy while we shivered in the cold and hoped they would leave before our cocoa got too chilly to drink.

"So, what were y'all doing before I walked up?" asked a woman who looked to be in her 30's, "Telling dirty jokes?"

We laughed a little guiltily.

"That's what I thought," she said, "That's what we always did in these things when I was your age."

To tell the truth, she was wrong. By the time she drove up, we had run out of dirty jokes and had moved on to lascivious gossip.

It all started when a Wise Man announced that he had, the week before, walked in on Belinda, the acknowledged slut of our youth group, and Theo, one of the guys in our group who was too busy to be in the nativity scene, in the preacher's office.

"What were they doing?" asked a Shepherd whose voice was just starting to change.

"Well, Theo was standing in front of the couch, and Belinda was sitting on the couch in front of him, and when I walked in she was zipping up his pants."

The Angel rolled her eyes, and Joseph snorted.

"But did you actually see them doing anything?" asked Mary, meek and mild. I – I mean she – found it kind of disrespectful that they were using the preacher's office, and thought that one of the Sunday School rooms or the storage area behind the church organ would have been more appropriate.

"Well, I definitely heard his zipper going up," said the Wise Man, making a zeeep! noise to impersonate a zipper.

"What did they do when they saw you?" asked another of the Shepherds, who happened to be a flat-chested girl who made a pretty good guy under the circumstances.

"Theo grinned at me, and Belinda got up and acted like nothing happen, like it was no big deal."

"Good thing it was you who caught them and not one of the counselors or Reverend McCullough," said another one of the Wise Men. The Holy Ensemble all laughed as we tried to imagine how the adults would have handled this. At that point, a car drove up and we all resumed our roles of quite reverence around the plastic baby doll.

I'm not sure about how impressed I am with today's glitzy extravaganza-quality Christmas displays that I see. I think they are overrated. Christmas should be more humble. There is something sweetly innocent about the idea of a group of real virgins (who see themselves as wise, if nobody else does) standing around in the cold drinking hot chocolate, telling dirty jokes and talking about sex that fills me with holiday cheer and gives me hope for mankind.

I guess I'm just strange that way.


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Comments

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

I don't think we did that kind of thing when I was a kid. I actually don't remember anyone doing that kind of thing in my town. The live nativity, not the sex talk. That went on aplenty. :P

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

You didn't grow up in the Bible Belt, though. That said, it's been years since I've seen a small church put on one of these things.

[adamant-turtle.livejournal.com]

Did you ever do a Living Rosary? Let me tell you, it was plenty boring standing around, waiting for all those prayers to be said! Who could fault the beads for chit-chatting with one another?

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I never had to do anything having anything to do with a rosary; it's a perk to growing up Protestant. The main perk to growing up Catholic that I could see was that a family could go to church late Saturday afternoon, hit the dance halls afterward, and then sleep in on Sunday and not have it be a sin. I had a Catholic best friend for a while, and I always thought it was kind of cool they could do that.

[jessnhalinda.livejournal.com]

Even the groups that still use dolls have gone high-tech now. Last year, my family coerced me into going to one that was held in a multi-level barn, with Roman centurions taking our names for their census, and shepherds guiding us past all the live animals until we finally reached the manger, complete with Mary, Joseph, doll baby Jesus, cocoa, cookies and hand sanitizer.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

All that trouble and they couldn't score a real baby to be Jesus?

I think the cocoa, cookies and hand sanitizer were a nice touch, though.

[jessnhalinda.livejournal.com]

Well, we were allowed to pet the animals.

The doll was very life-like. My mom and her cousin were debating whether or not it was a real baby, so I marched up to check the blankets for stomach movement. Up that close, it was discernibly a doll.

Maybe everyone at that church had practiced abstinence the previous year.

[noblwish.livejournal.com]

I was a Middle-School Mary, too! Wonder if it runs in the family?

I don't recall dirty jokes or lascivious gossip, though -- guess us small town kids were much more innocent that you evil city slickers. Either that, or they all knew how totally sweet and naive I was and just refrained from tarnishing my perfect little halo... who knows? :D

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

The difference isn't small town verses big town, it's middle school verses high school. A few years make a big difference. In middle school, we would have been telling "What do you call a man with no arms and no legs who...?" jokes.

You know:

Q. What do you call a man with no arms and no legs who lies on a table?

A. Trey.

Q. What do you call a man with no arms and no legs who lies in front of the door?

A. Matt.

Q. What do you call a man with no arms and no legs who hangs on the wall?

A. Art.

Q. What do you call a man with no arms and no legs when he's in the ocean?

A. Bob.


Q. What do you call a the same man when he's being pulled by a motor boat?

A. Skip.

And so on. When you are 12 years old, humor doesn't get any better than that!

[noblwish.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, that DOES sound familiar! Although, now that I think about it, I believe there was a mixture of Middle and High School kids -- but we may have taken turns in shifts. Too bad that church didn't last until my High School years... from what I hear, that group would have produced some JUICY gossip!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Our youth group was also divided into Jr. and Sr. High students; when Jr. High kids are around, most High School kids will censure themselves. This group around the manger at that moment were all High School aged.

[welfy.livejournal.com]

We wore snowsuits under our nativity outfits.