A reader recently reminded me of this piece I had written in the Christmas issue of 2008, which was included in Leave It Alone. You’ll Break It.

I think there’s a very fine line between pandering to parents and the real essence of the Gospel when toddlers are on display at Christmas.  Woe unto the pastor who cannot draw that line.

The trouble with children is that they’re just so cute and innocent, which can be a major distraction; but that innocence also happens to be the value of setting them in the midst as an example: except ye become like them, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

So here we are at Christmastime, and Toby is pouting because he has to be a shepherd every year and never gets to be Joseph.  Julie is fine as an angel, but she never quite knows which way she is to face, or when.  Billy is the innkeeper, even though there’s no innkeeper in the Christmas Gospel, because we needed parts to put the children in.  Lots of angels, lots of shepherds too; that also helps give everyone something to do.  Ah!  So maybe Christmas pageants are the source of that pious tradition of believing people generally wore bathrobes in Jesus’ day.  Maybe the reason for those indelible mental images of shepherds in terrycloth is that we just ran out of shepherd costumes.

Or, if the parish is small, with not enough boys, you have to have girls playing all the roles except for Joseph.  Speaking of which, if you really want to be more accurate with your casting, shouldn’t you have boys as the angels?  Ever heard of an angel named Nancy?  The angels may have sung Gloria, but that wasn’t because any biblical angel ever had a feminine name (nor, for the record, was there ever a Harold Angel, but I digress).  So here’s an explanation for the centuries-long portrayal of angels as feminine.  Maybe Michelangelo went to a Christmas pageant where they ran out of boys.

But I would not only recommend letting such things be, but even seeking to recover the simpler Christmas pageants that used to be so familiar.  There is much to be gained from letting our little ones reenact the Christmas Gospel, in however faltering ways they do.  I’d venture a guess that we adults have been molded in a salutary way by our own memories of peering into the manger on bended knee, even if the swaddled bambino was a Cabbage Patch doll bearing no resemblance whatever to the Christ Child.  It wasn’t the real thing, after all; it was a play.  And we knew it, even then.  And if Joseph had a runny nose, causing Mary to snicker when she should have been more devout, or one of the shepherds started playing horsey with his staff, or a Wise Man took off his crown and put it in his mouth, that was all OK too, because we were just kids, just playacting.  And it would be nice if we could let our own children have that experience too. Still, there is a line to be drawn between the play and the reality, and since many people never deign to do so, the drawing of it is worthy of our attention.  It’s an especially helpful line for the children to learn about during these tender times in their lives. 

Which is why, if at all possible, the Christmas pageant should be held in the auditorium rather than in the chancel.  It’s a play; it needs a stage.  The chancel is not a stage, but is for the real thing; that ought to be where we worship, and not where we hold plays.  And if a parish is too small to have an auditorium, the parish hall in the basement will do.  If it’s a worthy enough place for funeral luncheons, then why not for Christmas pageants?

I don’t know why these pageants have tended in recent years to be moved into the church, but my guess is that pastors like to think at least in this way they can get some of the folks who never come to church to be brought in.  The trouble is that if they’re only coming for the pageant, they aren’t really coming to church; it’s still just a Christmas pageant.

To offset the notion that it’s just a pageant, pastors have resorted to creating or employing a newer brand of Christmas pageants which bear less and less resemblance to the simple and serene ones we remember.  Now the children, having been brought into the church, have also been brought to shifting their playacting, which has actually made things worse.  Now, instead of being asked to be Wise Men, they are asked to be pastors.  So they line up behind a microphone as each gets his turn to read a part of some narrative composed by some unnamed writer from the Synod’s District and Congregational Services.

Usually no one can hear the children, even though the mikes are turned up all the way; the children are just too shy, so they mumble, they run their words together, and they trail off as they turn away to the back of the line even before finishing.  I used to find that frustrating, but now I’m more inclined to think it’s preferable to the alternative of hearing what the wonk has actually written, which is generally a poor substitute for the words of Scripture, or sometimes even made to stand in for the Christmas story itself, which makes the latter, sadly, much harder to find.

Nor do we get the familiar carols.  The new Christian music genre has shoved them all aside, and instead we have to hear things like Mark Lowry’s Mary, did you know that your baby Boy will one day walk on water . . .” Nice thought, I suppose, and the song even has some fine turns of phrase (“This child that you've delivered will soon deliver you”) and rather high Christology (“When you kiss your little baby You've kissed the face of God.  . . . This sleeping child you're holding is the Great I Am”).  What’s troubling is, in the first place, the notion of an omniscient songwriter, or worse, if we have to sing along, an omniscient congregation, which somehow knows more than the Blessed Virgin in all her pondering of these things in her heart.  Secondly, and more irritating, is the nature of the genre.  The popular Christmas song of the twenty-first century rather drips with the singer’s emotion.  The emotional musical setting for the lyrics draws attention to itself, and thus competes with them.  As for the lyrics, what seems to drive them and make them popular is the simple, if often somewhat shallow, thought behind them. At least they’re about Jesus, Child of Mary, who, though born in a humble setting, will one day save and rule the world.  Such words are, of course, true enough, and certainly far more edifying than, say, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” heard over and over in a shopping mall.  But they pale in comparison to “All My Heart This Night Rejoices.”  And so if we’re hearing more of them in church, we’re hearing less of the latter.

The trouble with these modern trends and intrusions is that they all have a shelf life.  None of our children will remember, in thirty years, having sung “What's a Savior Like You Doin' in a Place Like This?”  The very genre is Top-40, both in expectations and in cash flow, and therefore in all likelihood what’s hot today will be gone and forgotten tomorrow. 

But children have been singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” for over a hundred years, as well as a host of carols which have demonstrated by their longevity that they are here to stay.  Not only, I say, by their longevity, but by their skillful and artistic weaving of the biblical motifs into their lyrics: “Yet in thy dark streets shineth / The everlasting light.”  Wasn’t it marvelous to hear it even when Hollywood stars used to sing those simple words?—as opposed to the currently popular artists who, to the accompaniment of a soft-rock backbeat, croon away with lilting voices tending more toward their self-aggrandizement than toward the Lord of whom they ostensibly sing.

These modern artists have replaced our pipe organs with electric guitars and drums, and our hymnals with throwaway lyrics arising more from their own sense of creativity—such is the case with all popular lyrics—than from the Gospel.  They may be able to boast that they weren’t afraid to go against tradition to make music that keeps up with the changing times, but what they discarded was something much richer than a culturally relative style of bygone years.

And perhaps worst of all, now they have done this with Christmas, and I’m guessing this trend developed in earnest when the pageants were moved from the church hall into the place of worship.

So I’d offer another suggestion.  Not only, that is, ought the Christmas pageant to return to the place where it routinely used to be, and thus be removed from the Holy Place; but also, the Holy Place ought to be the place reserved for the singing of the sacred carols we learned in our childhood.

Toward that end, a fine tradition arose in Great Britain almost a century ago, at King’s College, of holding the so-called Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the church.  We have been observing this in our own parish for several years now, and it has involved the children.  The service opens with a brief explanation.  Each of the first eight lessons, a set lectionary of familiar Christmas passages, is read by a child who has practiced careful pronunciation and voice projection.  (That means, incidentally, that attention must be paid to the problem of shy or mumbling children.  But even if a child fails in this regard, at least what he has practiced speaking is a very useful and memorable Bible passage, and that in itself is a good thing.)  The ninth lesson is read by the pastor.  Between the lessons, two or three stanzas of familiar carols are sung.  It might be used as is, or serve as a pattern for adaptation.  If desired, a sermon may be preached after the last lesson.

There will arise the question of when to hold such a service, or when to hold a Christmas pageant.  Many might want to hold such events on Christmas Eve, and depending on local circumstances that might be acceptable.  What would be unfortunate, however, would be a consideration of either event in place of the Christ Mass.  Liturgical reform, one would think, ought to start with restoring the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar to the center of our Christmas celebration, as the term Christmas itself indicates.  That is said with regards both to place (the church) and to date (on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day).

I’d prefer, if possible, to hold such other special events as Christmas pageants or a Service of Lessons and Carols during the twelve days of Christmas, that is, between Christmas and Epiphany, rather than during Advent, since the Church is generally well served by resisting the temptation to follow the cultural winds, which are unaware of the emphases of Advent and therefore start their Christmas celebration as soon as the city streets are decorated in late November.  The Church, by contrast, liturgically prepares for Christmas with a season dedicated to preparation, and then liturgically observes Christmas during the twelve days from December 25 to January 5. 

But I say “if possible” with the recognition that sometimes the ideal can be elusive, particularly in parishes which have not yet achieved a strong liturgical tradition.  So a Christmas pageant on, say, the Fourth Sunday in Advent, at evening, and in the church hall, could be a great move in a laudable direction, if it has been moved here from Christmas Eve in the church.  Then Christmas Eve itself is left open for the true celebration of the Holy Altar.

Most important of all in these considerations, one would think, should be what is best for the children themselves.  A traditional Christmas pageant would be good for them; traditional carols would be good for them too.  And, not least, a sense of learning the difference between a pageant and liturgical worship―that’s certainly good for them.  We’ll do well to remember that we aren’t necessarily serving their best interests if we simply want to see them on display in church in whatever way works; and that they are certainly missing very much indeed if they are no longer being taught those sublime and wonderful carols. 

So on Christmas we should be encouraged to dress them up in their Christmas best, and take them with us, and set them in the pew beside us, and simply worship as a family.  And maybe they’ll learn for themselves, and by themselves, even instinctively, the serenity and wonder of the Christ Child and His Holy Incarnation.  Maybe they’ll even innocently express their own holy faith there most of all, as a certain toddler did some fifty years ago, sitting with his parents in the balcony of a crowded church on Christmas Eve.  He promptly rose from his seat at the close of the service, unaware that the congregation were saying their silent prayers as the organ began quietly to play, and he cheerfully and robustly sang out the words he knew by heart, innocently oblivious to the fact that while most of the people could not see him back there, they could all hear the sound of his crystal clear voice intoning a spontaneous solo:

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay

Close by me forever and love me, I pray

Bless all the dear children with Thy tender care

And fit us for heaven to live with Thee there.