December 23rd on the Virtual Advent Tour!!!

Christmas is coming! What does December 23rd mean to me? Well, I hope that most of the things I want to do for Christmas are going to be done...maybe. The biggest thing that happens on December 23rd for me is Christmas Pageant practice! Our parish had a Christmas Pageant in 1998 on the Sunday evening before Christmas. Last year, I asked if we could do it again because the days lined up the same. Our pastor said we should do it before Mass on Christmas Eve! Wow! I was really nervous about it, but also really excited to do it. There was even an article in the local newspaper about it. We put on a pageant about the Christmas story from the Bible, depicting the different parts of the story with music, pantomime and pageantry. Two of our high school students play Mary and Joseph.

And, as you can see, we use a REAL BABY! The parents were so great and very happy to have their baby portray the baby Jesus. Students in Grades 1,2&3 could be angels or sheep and students in Grades 4,5&6 could be angels or shepherds...

and Nathan was "the star".

The School Choir sang as the Youth Ensemble played their instruments and it was glorious! We have one big rehearsal on December 23rd and do the Pageant on December 24th at one of our early Christmas Eve Masses. We are all really looking forward to this year's Pageant. It will be a little different because we will have two Narrators and we are using a girl for baby Jesus (shhh! don't tell). The Pageant helps children remember the story because you always remember better when you act things out. I hope you have a glorious Christmas Eve and thanks for visiting on the Virtual Advent Tour!