It's been awhile since I blogged, but lately I've been thinking about Christmases past (mostly in the middle of the night). So, I thought I'd reminisce a bit about my childhood Christmas memories.
One of the most special things about Christmas when in elementary school was the Christmas pageant every year. It was always the same. All the students in the 4th-8th grades at Portage Park School participated (around 500 students) and the younger students attended the dress rehearsal. So, by the time you got into 4th grade, you knew what to expect.
I seem to remember Miss Jacobsen being in charge of the pageant - or maybe she was just the one that kept it alive. Miss Jacobsen taught 3rd grade and had done so for decades, it seemed. She was petite and professed to be a Christian so she wanted to keep the true meaning of Christmas as a part of our Christmas.
We didn't have music classes in grade school - at least I don't really remember them. I remember once or twice being in a music class but most of our art and music was taught in the classroom. So, we worked on our songs in our classroom first. Then we can together and one teacher led each group in the songs we were to sing. There was a group that sat on the left side of the auditorium that sang Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming and Ave Maria. (I was never in that group.) I was always in a singing group (although I wished I could be one of the actors) and only remember sitting in the back half of the right side of the auditorium. We sang O Come, All Ye Faithful, O, Little Town of Bethlehem, O, Holy Night, The Birthday of a King, Angels We Have Heard on High, and Joy to the World. There was a group of boys that sang We Three Kings.
The pageant was made up of several scenes. The first scene was the angel's appearing to Mary. An 8th grade girl played the angel and another was Mary. (Oh, how I wished I could have been picked for one of those parts!) The curtain would open and the blue lights were on. Mary was kneeling and the angel stood with her arms upraised. They held that pose the entire time that the singing was on.
The costumes were used every year and seemed really authentic to me. In the 8th grade I got to help get costumes on and they were so pretty.
Mary wore a blue gown. She was always a petite, dark haired girl. The angel, it seemed, was always a tall blonde. She wore a white gown with big wings and a tinsel garland halo.
The second scene included one or two classes of 4th graders. (My 4th grade class was singers.) They had to have their own costumes. They were going to Bethlehem to be taxed. In amongst that group, they stuck the 8th grade Mary and Joseph. While we sang O, Little Town of Bethlehem, they marched across the stage, stopped to read the edict and went on.
Then they had a manger scene with Mary, Joseph, and the baby. I think I remember that this was when we sang The Birthday of a King. (I knew that song well. I know I sang it at least 2 years when Miss Murray was my teacher.) Most everything was sung acapella. A teacher would blow the pitch on a mouth organ and we would sing from that.
The next scene was shepherds. They had a slide taken of sheep on a hillside in the Holy Land that they projected from the projection booth at the back of the balcony. The shepherds had to stand real still. At one point the angel appeared and had to hold her arms up high the whole time we sang. The older girls had to sing a descant on the chorus of Angels We Have Heard on High and we anxiously awaited the day when we could sing that.
The kings came down the aisles from the back doors for the next scene. I don't remember ever singing We Three Kings so I'm pretty sure it was the 7th and 8th grade boys that sang. The 3 boys who were kings were dressed quite royally with beautiful crowns and gifts. I think they came down one aisle, crossed the front, and went up the steps on the other side and then disappeared into the curtains.
The final scene showed everyone at the manger: Mary, Joseph, (doll) baby, shepherds, angel, and wise men.
The narration was done by an 8th grade boy, if I remember correctly. It was all from the Bible - word for word.
Practices were fun. The auditorium seats were wooden seats that pushed up. There was a light along the sides and I think there were some lights in the rows between seats. We did a lot of sitting while the teachers organized everyone. I remember them positioning the people and making them practice holding their poses without moving. Practicing the 4th grade leaving the auditorium, walking across the stage at the right speed, remembering to stop and read Caesar Augustus' announcement, and then not run off the stage. There was also a lot of practice getting the lighting correct and the curtains opened and closed correctly. (Several 8th grade boys were stage hands during the year and they were the ones that pushed the buttons and pulled the cords.)
The day of the program was really exciting. Almost everyone had someone come to the program. It was a big thing! The school must have had about 750-900 students and everyone lived within 1-1/4 miles of the school. Most kids had someone at home during the day. So the middle section of the auditorium was filled with guests. I remember that my Mom always came to the program. I think it was after lunch the day before Christmas break began. (We always went to school until 2-3 days before Christmas.) Everything was always so beautiful.
The following day we had parties in our classrooms and then went to the auditorium to watch a 16mm movie of the Night Before Christmas. So, not only could I recite all of Luke 2 and Matthew 1, I could recite Clement Moore's The Night Before Christmas. I think there might have been another movie, but that's all I remember since it was a classic and we watched it every year. Then we would take all of our Christmas art work, Christmas treats, graded papers and get our heavy coats, hats, scarves, mittens, and boots on and walk home.
One year I got to play the piano part at the beginning of the program. It was a chime part that played as the lights went down. I don't remember doing very well. I didn't like to practice or like having someone tell me how to play, so I didn't really excel on the piano as I should have. But that's another story...
Pam and I would play through the program in our basement for weeks before and after Christmas. We even cut some of the garland off the tree to make halos. We had our own homemade costumes and could sing every song in our 2-person pageant.
I really wish I had some pictures from those Christmas pageants... It wouldn't matter from which year; they were always the same.
I don't think the program continued much longer after I graduated from 8th grade. More and more of the kids were wanting to do something different and I remember practicing for another type of program during my 8th grade year. It never happened because the teacher in charge of it got sick. But I did hear that they substituted a more secular Christmas program several years later.
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