I am not sure when church Christmas pageants were relegated to children, but I suspect it was a precursor to the children’s sermon phenomenon.
It probably had something to do with directors finding it much easier to guilt children than adults. Not to mention the difficulty of convincing a congregation of the angelic and humble nature of the people portraying heavenly messengers and lowly shepherds.
Regardless of the reason, children dressed as biblical characters have been bringing communities together for a long time.
When people talk about being “Christmas and Easter Christians,” they often mean attending the Christmas pageant, cantata, and maybe an abbreviated Christmas Eve service rather than a full worship service. There is nothing that brings family members through the doors of a church like their precious little boy or girl relative wearing a crooked halo or a dragging bathrobe. If they are going to sing, even better.
The tradition is so familiar that many movies have included it in their storylines, like Simon Birch, or even built an entire film around it, as in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It’s enough to make an agnostic take a side for an hour.
Christmas pageants are like weddings in that we hope and pray everything goes perfectly but know the mistakes make the best stories.
It’s the groomsman who faints or the Christmas angel who falls into the baptistry that becomes lore. There is always the child whose mother assures him he will love it once he gets up there, only for him to break ranks and run crying down the aisle—making everyone laugh while the parents sit mortified, smiling through it.
And for some reason, a lot of little girls get new sparkly dresses that are quickly covered up by costumes. Why?
Because there aren’t many reasons to get dressed up anymore, and I have never known a little girl who didn’t love to twirl around the room when she put one on. It’s a time-honored tradition with no real purpose. It’s like cursive writing: lovely when done well, but used more for decoration than communication.
The party that follows in the fellowship hall is where a church’s particular traditions really come to life. Some congregations have Santa Claus arrive to hand out gifts, while others believe that sends the wrong message.
Some have a birthday cake for Jesus, while others give out brown bags of fruit, nuts, peppermint candy, and a candy bar, assembled by people shaped by the Depression era and who have never heard of food allergies. In contrast, others’ gifts range from leftover Halloween candy to a $5 gift card.
When I asked our pastor about children’s gifts, he said, “We don’t have a separate party for our kids, but I do give them a piece of candy when they come down for the children’s sermon on Christmas Eve.”
I suspect all the little girls still come down in their sparkly dresses, and it all comes full circle. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
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Retired campus minister, campus ministry coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, and Collegiate Specialist for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
