A Christmas Story, the Pirate Version

Sunday was the kids CCD Christmas program after mass.  We received a phone call personally inviting us to attend Saturday night, as they planned to dedicate the performance to the deployed military members of the parish.  They also had a small token they wanted to present the families. They gave us a very pretty wreath, and after mass we stayed in our pew for the much anticipated performance.

The Christmas story as told by a Grandmother mouse who apparently was at the stable where our Lord and Savior was born.  They are lucky that cute children played the parts of the mice, otherwise a story of vermin living for several thousand years wouldn't have been my idea of a great story.  Anyway, the costumes were adorable, one of my favorites was a little star.   Who I felt bad for, he had no lines and just had to stand there.  The Big D loved the sheep and immediately stood up to give them a standing ovation, complete with clapping, laughing and pointing....SHEEEP SHEEP! SHEEEEEP!

Most of the kiddos read their lines in that monotone-self-conscious-why-am-I-being-forced-to-do-this kind of way.  The audience was expected to sing along with the common Christmas tunes, but not understanding the low mumbled lines, and being Catholics, audience participation was poor (really you would think everyone would have caught on to the fact that Catholics don't sing...and if we do it isn't well.) My memory of some of the songs was rusty...my little family did a lot of humming along.  The true stand outs of this play were the camels though.  They came in with dark shades dancing and bee-bopping on altar stage..  They had no lines as a rap song version of we Three Kings was played and they danced, I laughed so hard.  It was cute, they were really the only animated and in-to-it characters...and it didn't fit with the rest of the play, but was so fun.

Not the actual KCs/Kings from our parish,
but a visual to help with the story.

Apparently there weren't enough child actors so three of the Knights of Columbus played the parts of the three kings.  I'm not sure if you have ever seen the KCs in full costume, but when they came into view the Toddler loudly shouted "I think those are PIRATES!!!"  At the end of the play when the procession of thespians marched by, he again was excited to point out them out. "Yep, those are three pirates! one-two-three!"

As a thank you to the CCD, I did truly love the play.  Thank you for the wreath and acknowledging our troops that won't be home for Christmas.  The program was cute, and I honestly didn't expect Gangsta Camels or Pirates. It was a memorable twist.