A Spin on Christmas Traditions

The Story of Jesus Was Never Told Quite Like This Before

Mary and Joseph were heading for the stage, along with a beatific baby Jesus. Crowding in were shepherds, their flocks, wise men, a gaggle of giggling angels -- and a traffic report.

"Oh, dear, we're just getting word that a cart has overturned at Main Street and Palestine Avenue," said Mikala, a "traffic reporter" played on stage at St. Peter's Episcopal Church's Christmas pageant by 9-year-old Brooke Hamm. "So beware of a backup in that area."

It was a Christmas pageant with a modern twist -- a morning talk show with anchors who interview the angel Gabriel and the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem. The wise men give weather reports, and commercial breaks offer a Donkey Wash and a Find It Fast navigating halter for camels.

The play is the brainchild of 11-year-old Hannah Recknor, a quiet sixth-grader who took an ancient Christian tradition and gave it a merry shake on Christmas Eve in the Poolesville church's annual Christmas production. "It's a wonderful way to learn about Christmas and get excited about it," Hannah said.

Christians have enjoyed pageants for centuries as a way to recount the birth of Jesus Christ. According to Christian tradition, Jesus was born in a lowly stable in Bethlehem to Mary, a virgin who had miraculously become pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit of God. Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus today, Christmas.

From those spare details, Christians have woven a rich tradition of pageants elaborate and simple, traditional and offbeat. The custom is widespread in Washington area churches.

For children in particular, "it has become a wonderful way to tell them the Christmas story, because they understand it better than some of the more traditional ways we do it, such as reading it from the Bible or someone telling it to them," said the Rev. Tom Purdy, rector of St. Peter's, a brick-steepled church with roots in the 1700s that averages about 120 worshipers Sunday mornings.

Hannah's script started with a story she wrote a few years ago about the birth of Jesus from the perspective of a barn cat. Church members who read it urged her to turn it into a play.

After toiling on it on the family computer in her basement, she turned it in to pageant director Traci Stevens and a few other church members. They loved it.

"We read it and we were blown away," Stevens said. "The creativity and her grasp of language are incredible."

With a 30-member cast for ages 2 to 16, 15 speaking parts and a more contemporary twist, Hannah's pageant was no simple undertaking.

After several rehearsals with the principal actors, the troupe gathered with the younger children, who play animals and angels, for the play's first run-through Sunday.