The Costume

It is that time of year again. The requests come thick and fast in the book bag ahead of the school event of the year – the Christmas Play. Brown tights, reindeer antlers (“no bells”) or Father Christmas hats must all be in school within the week. A trip to Woolworths beckons – what will we do without them. Parents up and down the country are making a mad dash around the shops competing over the last pair of green tights for their precious elves. Then comes the thankless task of counselling their little boys into wearing them, insisting that elves definitely can’t wear Spiderman socks.

Last week, my daughter arrived home in a state of extreme excitement. She could barely get the words out fast enough about the school play and what she needed to bring in. As usual, it is the highlight of her year and she rehearses as if she is about to hit the West End stage in mid-December. “I have to buy a Father Christmas hat by Monday,” she says. But it is only Friday November 21st and we have a very busy weekend ahead of us. By bedtime, she has mentioned it another six times and urges me to re-arrange my busy weekend schedule to squeeze in a shopping trip. She assures me that she recently spotted a Father Christmas hat at the checkout of a nearby shop. Later, I rummage through the book bag for precise instructions, only to find it empty. Clearly she was ahead of the game and thrown into action before her teacher had time to draft and print the crucial costume request to parents.

On Saturday, we dashed out to buy the crucial hat. After trawling round three shops it soon became clear that other Dorset elves had beaten us to it. By this stage, she was distraught. “I’ll get told off if I don’t bring it in on Monday. You simply HAVE to find one Mummy,” she cried. I too was beginning to feel under pressure. Perhaps I should have bought the one I had spotted the night before on the Internet and paid for Special Delivery. We continued on with our search and finally we found one whereupon we threw our arms round each other in elf-like delight.

Yesterday, my daughter came back from school with a letter from her teacher. It was a very jolly letter kindly asking us to bring a, “woolly hat to school by Monday 8th December.” I re-read it. It definitely says a woolly hat, not a Father Christmas hat, and it really does say 8th December, not 24th November? “Well, it’s still a hat and it’s better to be ready early,” says my daughter.

The Nativity

This year, the children have shown much interest in the Nativity story. This has largely been helped by school. Our daughter has played the proud part of an innkeeper in the school play and our son has been very busy ‘sounding out’ the word ‘Bethlehem’. We have also had the Travelling Holy Family visit us, which has caused much discussion. This a group of nativity figures, knitted by our village Mother’s Union, who travel around different families in the village in the weeks leading up to Christmas, finally arriving at the Church on Christmas Eve. Each family keeps it for a night and is allowed to keep one of the knitted sheep as a momento. This thrilled the children and as I set about reading them the Christmas story accompanying it, I was a little unprepared for the mass of questions that followed.

My four-year-old son, needless to say, was most interested in The Baddy, also known as King Herod and was desperately disappointed that his picture did not appear in any of the nativity stories we have in our house. He was also interested in what jobs Mary and Jospeh did. My daughter answered this question without hesitation, saying, “Mary was a cleaner and Joseph was a builder.” When asked why she thought Mary was a cleaner, she confidently replied, “Because she carries a broom.” I should have known that any child would have come to the same conclusion as Mary is often portrayed sweeping around the stable – impressive when you have travelled on a donkey for hundreds of miles before giving birth. Joseph of course carries tools, explaining his building expertise.

The questionning then moved onto the gifts. After giving the briefest explanations of gold, frankincense and myrrh, which I could clearly see puzzled them, my son asked, “Did Father Christmas come to the stable that night and leave Jesus a stocking?” Oh goodness, this was getting tricky. Thankfully, my daughter changed the subject and said, “It was a bit like a christening. The kings and shepherds were Jesus’ godparents.” Well, that is a good way of looking at it and we were on safer territory than Rudolph and his sleigh landing on the roof of the stable.

Later that afternoon, my son was peering at the small wooden nativity scene in our sitting room, clearly deep in thought. He turned to me and said, “Mummy, how did they all go to the loo in the stable?” I pondered briefly as to whether I should launch into the inventions of modern appliances and decided against it. I expect they just used a corner of the stable, I explained. That evening as I passed the stable, I looked down to see a small wooden loo, which had been moved from the dolls house to pride of place at the front of the stable beside the crib. Well, we do try don’t we!

The Advent Calendar

The countdown to Christmas has begun. We are now on day seven of the beloved Advent Calendars and only another 17 exciting mornings to go. This year, I gave in to the childrens’ continuous requests for a chocolate calendar.

They could barely contain themselves in the days leading up to the 1st of December. They shrieked with excitement when they came down for breakfast to find their Advent Calendars on the kitchen table ready for the ceremonial opening of the first door. As a mother of three twittering starlings, I have to pay tribute to the Advent Calendar. Over the past few days, the children have been up promptly, dressed in record time and even cleaned their cereal bowls of each and every remaining Rice Crispie. They sit perfectly still and quiet, as I take the calendars down from the top shelf of the dresser. Woe betide any small hands or the paws of a passing border terrorist opening a door early. They excitedly search for the number and their little fingers work frantically at the small door, desperate for the sight of the small brown chocolate shape. My son struggles with his small blunt nails, trying to shift the chocolate from its plastic nest. Then, there is the excitement of working out what the shape is and the further excitement of the Nativity picture behind. The Advent Calendar also works as quite a useful bribery tool in our house. Last Sunday, we all braved church once more and sat at the back, desperately trying not to distract the rest of the congregation with our brood. When my son began building a tower out of kneelers and then knocking them down, much to The Baby’s utter delight, I was able to hiss at him, “If you continue with that, you will not have your advent calendar tomorrow morning.” With that, he promptly sat bolt upright on his chair, his hands neatly on his lap staring straight ahead of him.

The Advent Calendar, with or without chocolates, is a marvellous tradition. It helps the children enjoy the anticipation of the coming of Christmas rather than just one solitary day. With any luck, some of the pictures or chocolate shapes behind the 24 doors remind them about the meaning of Christmas. And just as the build-up of Father Christmas gets children to reflect on their behaviour, perhaps the advent calendar does the same. There are more than one million advent calendars sold each year around the world, so I hope there are many more families like us enjoying a December of more well-behaved, albeit very excited children.

The Christmas play

This morning, I was awoken by a little voice singing. “Welcome, welcome. This is our Christmas story.” It was my daughter, gaily lying in bed rehearsing her school song for the forthcoming annual Christmas play. This is what my five-year-old looks forward to all year. If you ask her what she likes most about school, she will speedily reply, “the Christmas show,” and she can barely contain herself in the days leading up to the performance. As parents, we love the play too and I usually end up blubbing into my husband’s sleeve, the minute my child appears dressed up on the stage.

My four-year-old son is also entering the school play scene this year but he takes a different approach to it all. He is pleased to be taking part but, to my relief, is intent on keeping the show a complete surprise. This is impossible for my daughter. Last year, Singing Santa appeared in our house in the middle of November. She rehearsed the song most days leading up to the play. Thankfully, we were given respite when she was at school. However, I soon found myself humming, “Guess what? A baby boy is born,” while pushing my trolley up supermarket aisles. These festive songs have extremely catchy tunes and simple lyrics, to appeal to their small vocalists. Even my husband got hooked and we were subjected to deep renditions of “Santa’s on his sleigh tonight. Way up high, way up high,” bellowing out from the bathroom.

When I was a child, I do not remember singing these catchy little jovial tunes. I remember having to learn, ‘Little Donkey’ ‘Away in a Manger’ and ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas,’ if the school were feeling a little racey that year. The performance was always the nativity play. The story was read out beautifully by the narrator, who was of course our very best reader and learnt by an understudy, the second best reader, should one get a cold. I was always one of those children who was an angel year after year. In fact, usually one of the angels in the back row. I remember my teacher saying to me, when she read out the appointed cast, “Sophie you always make such a good angel.” Yes, I thought, just standing at the back in a white sheet, with the only tiny excitement being the halo, a strand of tinsel hanging around my mouse brown fringe. I used to look longingly at the pretty, little angelic girl who year after year played the part of Mary. She wore a beautiful sky blue dress and got to hold a small doll throughout the play.

Thankfully, there are no auditions for Singing Santas or reindeers. They are just one big merry group singing, “All we need is a place to stay. Please Mr innkee.. (you have to pause, Mummy) ..per what do you say?” as loud as they can. We have mastered the tune, stocked up on packets of tissues and will no doubt be humming it well into 2009.