This year I read the Shortlings The Best Christmas Paegent Ever... or rather, I downloaded the book onto my Kindle and then handed it over to The KingofHearts so he could read it to them because I only really get about three sentences in to reading anything aloud before I disintegrate into coughing fits and then it takes about a year to get through a chapter and that makes it kind of hard to follow a story.  But I did the really hard part, right?

 Anyway, they enjoyed it. The KingofHearts hadn't ever head the story before so it was new to him too and I hadn't read it in about 30 years or so. We finished the book Sunday night and then Monday morning, I got an email from The Caterpillar's Sunday School teacher saying she'd taken these pictures in their class and maybe I'd like to see.  She looked more like the character Gladys in that book than if I'd dressed her up with that end in mind.


"Did you have a Nativity Paegent in church yesterday?" I asked.

 "No."

 "No?  Then what did you do?"

 "We dressed up."

 "Why?"

 "My teacher wanted us to."

 "But was it for a Christmas pageant?"

 "No.  She just read the Christmas story while we sat there."

 "Well, that's what a Christmas pageant is, knucklehead.  Did you yell, "Hey! Unto you a child is born!!!"

 "No."

 "You know, like in the book we read."

 "Oh! ... No."

 "Well what did you say?"

 "Nothing."

"How come?"

 "We weren't allowed to talk."

 Probably a good thing.  She would have named the play "Revenge at Bethlehem."

I imagine this is the version of the Christmas story where they weren't allowed into the barn because of the possibility of mad cow disease and then some well meaning drunkard in the bar offered, "Hey you can have the baby under this here table."