Lookout Christmas! Here We Come.

It's only sixteen days to Christmas Day, and already I feel as though I'm well on the way to Christmas.

I've just completed my third (and final) dress rehearsal for one of the local Primary School's Nativity Plays.

Next week we have performances on Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon, by which time, if my calculations are correct, Mary & Joseph will have travelled further on the school stage than the real Mary & Joseph did to get to Bethlehem! The Three Wise Men will have delivered twelve presents in all, and Mary will have given birth to four babies!

That's not all. The multitude of Shepherds, Angels, and Animals will have performed their magic, and no doubt reduced some of the proud parents to tears.

The highlight this year has to be the two little children (a boy and a girl from the infants class) who sing the first verse of "Away in a Manger." I reckon there won't be a dry eye in the house!

The reason we have to do four performances is that the school hall will not hold all the parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles who want to come and support their children..

If  you really want a good laugh, with a nativity flavour to it, you will do no better than read a book by the 1970's comedian Mike Harding called "You can see the Angel's Bum Miss Worswick"


Just to give you a flavour of what you can expect.......

There was no room for them to go behind the manger to adore the tiny infant lying in the straw, so they stood with their backs to the audience, facing upstage. At the words "The Angel of the Lord came down, and glory of the Lord shone around" all three angels bent to adore the child in the manger.

Michael Coffee, second chime bar player, who was sat next to me, threw his chime bar over his head, and in a voice that could be heard several streets away, screeched, "You can see the Angel's bum, Miss Worswick!"

There was pandemonium. Children all over the hall shouted in horror. Miss Worswick, anxious to quell the riot, gave the signal for the angels  to ascend into Heaven. Heavenwards they went, one of the angels being pulled too enthusiastically hit the ceiling, dislodging a lump of plaster and snapped his cable so that, without Heavenly aid he descended unangelically on to the piano, where he landed with a bang that shut the piano lid on Miss MacGoebel's fingers......... 

Having been involved in school Nativity Plays for a goodly number of years the above really rings true!

Do yourself a favour and buy a copy of the book! I have had my copy for about 20 years, and I still cannot read all the way through the "You can see the Angels bum Miss Worswick" episode without breaking down with laughter.

It is obtainable from Mike Harding's own website and published by Robson Books.


ISBN-10: 0860513467 (softback)
ISBN-13: 978-0860513469 (hardback)