The Christmas Pageant

I attended the First Baptist Church Christmas Pageant last night. I had been before and wouldn’t have gone again except my sister Gerri asked me and my sister Nancy was going too. We bought the tickets months ago. It wound up being Gerri, Nancy and her husband Joe, Dorine – Gerri’s friend, and Mike and Leslie – Gerri’s friends and neighbors.

Very heterosexual, until you throw me into the mix. I bring out the homo in everyone. Come on…I had gotten a pedicure the day before with French tips and Dorine and I were grabbing at Gerri’s Clinique lipstick before we left the house. My father would be proud to know I drew the line at putting glitter on.

This is the 24th season of the pageant and it’s a big deal in Ft. Lauderdale. The first half of the pageant is usually Christmas carols and the second half is a passion play (not the Jethro Tull kind either). Last time I went the first half was very Gay 90’s in costume and staging. I was happy to see that they had brought it up to date with a kind of rock-a-billy opening. Note to self: I must get a poodle skirt. Would it be too much to wear it out to Ramrod on New Year’s Eve?

In the midst of my musings about the happy members of the congregation building a concentration camp for the likes of me I noticed something happening on stage. They had inter-racial couples doing the dance numbers. Wow! I knew it was an integrated congregation, but this surprised me. I guess they’re not Bob Jones Baptists. Another couple hundred years and they may have men dancing with men.

Anyway, back to the Christ child and the second half of the pageant. The narrator is Simon Peter, but the star of the show is J.C. He starts out as a baby as you probably know and they had a little baby on stage, not to mention shepherds, camels, donkeys, sheep, three kings, their retinues, and about 100 other people dressed in robes. There’s a scene where Joseph (the bible guy, not my brother-in-law) holds baby Jesus up (à la Lion King) and Gerri starts bawling. I think Dorine was bawling too.

Fast forward to the Hosanna scene. J.C. is working the crowd and riding a donkey, and walking through the congregation. My big chance! But my eyesight is not as good as it used to be. I turn to Dorine, “What color are his eyes?” I get the answer I was hoping for. “Blue, I think,” says Dorine, oblivious to my obsession with blue-eyed Jesus, Max Von Sydow, and Mel Gibson.

Speaking of Mel Gibson, they really bloodied Jesus up this year at the pageant. Nancy’s sitting on my right and now she’s crying. She told me later it was because the pageant was so beautiful, but I know it was because she saw Jesus suffering. They’ve got good hearts, my sisters.