Shepherds and Sheepdonkeys

Today is the day of our church’s annual Children’s Christmas Pageant. Today is the day I get to turn little children into Shepherds and Sheepdonkeys.

It seems without fail that I am in charge of making sure all the little munchkins in our church are dressed to play their parts in the annual Children’s Christmas Pageant again this year, which is great, because I love costumes. Halloween is seriously my favorite time of year for that reason. However, trying to dress so many kids requires special talents, ones that I unfortunately do not behold. That is why this year I will employ the mad skills of parents to dress their own kids. Why? Because while shepherds and angels are pretty easy to manage as we give those parts to the older kids, preschoolers are animals in more sense than one. Last year, for instance, one particular little girl wanted to be a sheep, and was dressed accordingly… until she saw the donkey hat that was for the donkey costumes and she unceremoniously threw the sheep hat from her head and replaced it with the donkey. Instead of arguing my point that such creatures simply don’t exist, I christened her the special Sheepdonkey.

Children’s pageants are a time for kids to shine, and if some of them want to be kids, complete with their wild imaginations and sometimes inappropriate but innocent sense of humor, why not let them? I mean, so what if last year one of the shepherds decided to sit in the Baby Jesus’s manger after getting up on stage? Pick your battles where you can, but if a kid is just being a kid and not causing themselves or others harm or annoying me to no end or asking me silly questions just to get me to talk to them during a particular concert because they don’t want to be there anymore and I ask them if they ever stop talking and they say no, let them.

Childhood is a time for kids to learn how to be good adults, just don’t try to rush them into adulthood too soon. You’ll have plenty of time to have adult conversations and expectations after they grow up. After all, childhood is such a short stretch in a person’s life. So I say if we have another sheepdonkey this year, I’m okay with that and everyone else should be too.