Christmas Pageant at the Cathedral

Shepherds and sheep in the pageant

I was in my first ever Christmas pageant a couple weeks ago, as part of the Cathedral’s pageant.  I was a shepherd.

It was about the first Christmas pageant I can remember even remember seeing, and certainly the first one I had ever been a part of.  I grew up Unitarian Universalist, and I suppose the Christmas pageant is not something UUs do that much.  In any event, as far as I can remember, we never had a Christmas pageant in my church when I was a kid.  The Episcopal church I was going to in college had a pageant, but it was always close enough to Christmas that it was after our semester was over and we’d gone home for the holidays.

One of the three kings comes

So there I was, grown up and an intern and everything, and I suddenly had to learn all these mysteries about exactly who all the people in the Christmas pageant are, and what shepherds wear, and whether they can wear their shoes or not.  Being a shepherd is fortunately not difficult.  I am not exactly sure what happened before we got on the scene, but by the time we arrived, Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus were already there in Bethlehem.  We came in and sat at some distance until the angels came.  Once they came and stood behind the scene, we followed them to the holy family.  We then waited while the three kings came with their gifts, concluding the pageant.