A holiday lesson in sharing the spotlight at Christmas pageants

As Christmas approached when my daughter was 4, she had one wish. Okay, she wanted a bunch of toys. But beyond that, she really, really, really wanted to play Mary in the annual Christmas pageant at her preschool.

And so did her best friend, Emma.

Tessa's acquaintance with the Virgin Mary began when she was 1 and her older brother was a 3-year-old student at Abracadabra Child Care & Development Center in Alexandria. Liam had been cast as a tree in the pageant and was supposed to say "Swish! Swish!" at the proper telling of Luke's Gospel, which had been simplified for the toddler set. But while his friend's Super Hero tree fought imaginary tree bad guys on the altar, Liam refused even to put on his cardboard evergreen.

Tessa didn't pay a whit of attention to her brother and the tree fiasco, the 2-year-old "stars" picking their noses or the 4-year-old "innkeepers" who seemed to be in an unspoken competition to see whose tongues could touch their chins for the longest time. Her eyes remained fixed on Mary. She was mesmerized by the light blue sheets that served as both robe and headdress -- and of course the fact that Mary got to sit in the center of the stage.

Ditto the following year, when Liam finally made it through an entire production, mainly because he got to be a soldier with a sparkly shield demanding that Joseph and his poor pregnant wife go to the town of their grandparents because "the king wants to count his people." Tessa stared at Mary the whole time.

Through the years, Tessa moved up the Christmas pageant ranks, first as a nose-picking star, then as a donkey with glittery purple ears that looked more Playboy bunny than Biblical animal. Finally, at 4, she thought it was her turn to play Mary.

So did Emma.

When the time came for the roles to be decided, I worried which girl would be chosen. I worried what that would do not only to their sweet, little-girl friendship, but also to the psyche of whoever lost out. I remembered the bitter lessons of my own Christmas pageants past, when in grade school I advanced to the ranks of angel, with my coat-hanger halo, but never made it to the coveted inner sanctum of the manger scene. What a hard lesson to learn so young, I thought, about winners and losers, about disappointment and about how sometimes getting what you most want can also break your best friend's heart.

And then one day Tessa came home and announced matter-of-factly that she got the part of Mary.

And so did Emma.

That year, a somewhat bewildered Joseph had a blue-robed Mary on either side of him. Together, at just the right moment, after the narrator had made a crack about celebrating a Mormon Christmas, Tessa and Emma both stood and recited Mary's line in unison: "Don't worry, dear Joseph, God is watching over us."

It was perfect.