Every year for the last fourteen years I have told the children in the Christmas Pageant it was the best one yet. This year, my fifteenth Christmas Pageant, will be the most special.
A little background first.
When I was little Sister Anna Regina’s third grade class always performed the Christmas Pageant at the Family Mass on Christmas Eve. I couldn’t wait until I was in third grade. I remember in second grade watching the kids and hoping it would be me the next year. But Sister Anna Regina retired and I didn’t get my chance. In the years that followed there would be other ways of incorporating children, but nothing that was the same.
In October of my senior year of high school I was working at the rectory. I asked the pastor if I could bring back the Christmas Pageant. I wrote a script, made a proposal, talked to the school principal and anyone I needed to. The first Christmas Pageant I coordinated included 66 first, second and third graders. There were 45 angels alone! It was standing room only that night at Mass. It was spectacular. Looking back, I can’t believe the amount of trust I had from the parish and the parents!
Each year has been amazing. The year that first group of kids who were in my first pageant participated for the last time, the year we introduced the pageant alums as “helpers”, the year the first group of helpers graduated eighth grade then high school (and I cried through the whole thank you list), the year I lived in Pennsylvania and we made it work, the year I got married, the year I was pregnant (both!). But now there is this year.
This year is Aidan’s first Christmas Pageant. He is going to be a shepherd. And the costume he is going to wear is the costume my mother in law made for Chris. Chris was in Sr. Anna Regina’s last Christmas Pageant. He was a shepherd.
So this year, my fifteenth Christmas Pageant, is going to be very special.