That’s a wrap.
End of nativity season for another year.
This weekend, key stage one teachers will be hitting the wine hard, sitting a a dark room and rocking, mumbling fragments of songs that are wedged between their ears. Tortuous rhymes, “But you’re going to be a mum, his highly honoured chum!” sneak out at night, morphing into twitching dreams.
Although, it’s too late to change anything that happened teachers will reflect on the successes and failures, hoping that next year’s nativity will also be described as, ‘the best ever.’
The failures always make good dinner party tales. Who doesn’t enjoy hearing stories about the moment when the music stops and the children carry on singing but change both the key and tempo of the piece? Or about the child who stuck two fingers up at his mum to stop her taking pictures when she’d been told not to?
There are always a lot of stories to choose from. It’s inevitable when working with 150 small divas between the ages of 4 and 7.
There will have been wardrobe malfunctions. Mary’s veil will have slipped over her face, an angel’s wing will have fallen off, the lead presenter will have lifted her skirt above her head, a shepherd will have dropped a crook and the donkey’s tail will have fallen off. A small child, dressed as a sheep will have dropped their leggings during the class dance and told the teacher encouraging them to pull them up, “I’ve got an itchy bum cheek, though, innit?”
Small children aren’t always proportionate with the noise they make and so a comment like that will have carried right to the back of the room but the whole birth of Jesus gets mumbled and swallowed into a twisting whisper. There is a myth that under sevens can stand still on stage and project their voices but I think you are more likely to see a unicorn, which is lucky for seven year olds because that’s all they really want from life. Teachers try various techniques like putting a star, cross or spot where each child should stand but there is always a risk that a child standing on another’s shape could lead to a punch up. Then there is the microphone dilemma, as inevitably it will be the loudest child that has been spookily cast as Herod that will stand in front of it and sing at top volume, while the child with the line about calling the baby Jesus shrinks back from it and gets even quieter.
Props can cause a whole host of problems but most primary school teachers will be watching the clips from the school in Ireland where the intended sparklers turned out to be fireworks and feeling very grateful that they only had to deal with the flock of inflatable-sex-toy sheep that Amazon were selling with their shepherd outfits this year.
All of this always happens in winter vomiting virus season, flu now Covid season, so coughs, snot and other bodily fluids feature heavily. My favourite story from this year’s round of nativity plays that I heard was the camel who loudly shouted, “I’ve dun a poo,” shook his leg only for the offending turd to fly out onto the stage. I hope someone writes that into Nativity 6 (or whatever number we are up to) stretching the truth to make it land in the lap of the Mayor, sitting in the front row.
Even with all of the disasters or maybe especially because of them teachers will also be feeling pride at their achievements. I know I am.
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