This year, the three members of ASIHTB were asked if we would participate in our church’s annual Christmas program.
Now, there’s something you should realize about our church: It’s full of geeks. I don’t mean there are a handful of people in the congregation who read comics or like video games. I mean, last August, a meeting of the board failed to reach quorum because more than half of the church board members were attending Gen Con. Our church hosts gaming events, puts cosplay photos in the bulletin, and sports a Final Fantasy chocobo on a banner in the narthex:
“WAAAAAARRRK!”
So we knew that we could have some fun with the Christmas program. In fact, it was expected of us.
Now, the traditional Sunday School Christmas pageant has much in common with an elementary-school play: Picture a bunch of bathrobe-clad children who haven’t learned their lines being prompted from the first row of seats by not-so-silent teachers.
Occasionally a shepherd is overcome with stage fright and bursts into tears.
The procession usually includes a manger scene, some angels with tinsel-garland halos, and a Christmas carol sing-along. It’s a fairly harmless tradition
(though one that is sometimes painful to sit through).
But everyone has seen that done a zillion times, either through personal experience or by watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. Even for parents with children in the program, it can drag on, and the bathrobes and tinsel don’t exactly exude reverence for the Nativity. This year, we wanted to add something a bit more original, or at least different. Something that would amuse the audience and keep their interest.
To set up the Christmas story, Laura created a video intro to be played as the children were taking their places for the pageant. This being December, 2015, she chose an appropriately seasonal theme:
(There was appropriate musical accompaniment, of course.)
The majority of this year’s pageant consisted of children in the single-digit age bracket playing animals in the stable and reciting meaningful lines like “Baa” and “Moo,” so the program organizer asked if we would cover the more dialogue-heavy scene where the Magi visit King Herod. She gave us free rein to write our own script and be as entertaining as possible. (Dangerous, that.)
We’re notorious for recycling costume pieces, so we knew right away that the villainous king Herod the Great had to be portrayed by Laura’s Emperor Ming. (How could we resist a pun like Ming Herod?) And instead of traditional magi like Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, we had Groucho, Chico and Harpo.
These three Wise Guys bore gifts of gold, frankincense, and mirth (cue Harpo’s horn honking). We stole shamelessly from the masters’ original comedy sketches, with exchanges such as:
HEROD: Well, I have some very smart people here, and they tell me the Messiah is supposed to be born in Bethlehem. That’s about six miles south of here. Er, you just go out the gate and follow the viaduct—
CHICO: Viaduct? Why-a no chicken?
HEROD: I don’t know why a no chicken; I’m an Idumean here myself.
(Bonus joke for history nerds playing along at home.) And:
GROUCHO: Don’t look now, but there’s one king too many in this country, and I think it’s you.
HEROD: No, no, I’m the present king, he’s the next king. I just want to give him a steady position.
GROUCHO: And if he can arrange it, it’ll be horizontal. Let’s go.
Harpo even got to fake a musical number, playing along with “We Three Kings” on a faux lyre (borrowed from my Haydee Tebelin costume).
After the program, cookies and hot cocoa were served in the narthex. It was really tempting to stay in character…
It was a lot of fun combining our nerd tendencies with the holiday celebration. And as one attendee pointed out: “There were probably hundreds of Christmas programs going on in this city tonight, But I’m betting ours was the only one that had the Marx Brothers kneeling around baby Jesus.”
Migratory Cocoanuts 