When I was a young teenager, I was approached by music director at our church with a flattering offer. She asked me to represent Mary in the annual Christmas Eve service. My job was to sit serenely on a wooden bench, dressed in robes.
I’d get to hold her seven-month-old grandson on my lap. He was going to be Baby Jesus, a role she probably planned on having him fill from the moment he was born in the spring.
There is never anything realistic about these Christmas services and everyone knows it. Mary didn’t have 3-inch tall bangs and braces. Jesus wasn’t born looking plumply Gerber and babble-prone alert.
Right before we made our way to the stage manger, the mom handed the baby boy over to my waiting arms. He was slightly fussy, so in a desperate move she gave an empty styrofoam cup to him to hold. In retrospect, I think she was nervous about her baby making a good impression on the congregation.
The cup distracted him for a few minutes as we sat together, bathed in the ethereal glow of a portable spotlight meant to mimic the heavenly host. Luke 2 was solemnly read. It was a typical Christmas Eve service with music, candles, and crowds.
Above the harmonious wail of the choir, I noticed the baby was making gagging, coughing sounds.
I turned him around to face me and noticed he had a large chunk of white styrofoam in his mouth. He had bitten it off, which is no surprise to anyone who’s parented longer than 5 minutes. Red Cross Babysitter Training to the rescue!
I stuck my finger in the side of his mouth and swept out the styrofoam in one deft motion. Mary saves Jesus.
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The next time I played Mary, I was a mother of four. Many, many years had passed, eons and eons of hazy time spun away into a foggy eternity of Christmases past, forever sealed in the vault of holiday infamy, bittersweet regret, and too much fudge. Behold, the ravages of age!
I was asked by the director of Sam and Ryley’s preschool to represent Mary in the school’s Christmas program. Could Tommy play Jesus? Sure. He was a year old, so he’d be another giant baby savior. Toddler bravado cannot be swaddled, but we’d try.
The night of the program arrived. I was given a long, voluminous white gown and blue scarf to cover my head. I pulled them over my dress and waited in the pastor’s study for my cue to go onstage. Tommy was blessedly asleep in a stroller. I hoped he’d remain asleep for the duration of our Mother and Child depiction. I could lift him out, glide on stage, and represent.
And then something woke him—a dozen jingling bells shaken by enthusiastic 4-year-olds? Applause? I don’t know.
He was mad and suddenly I was the mother who was self-conscious about having a bucking, red-faced baby on my lap. How to calm him? How? No cups to be seen! No small bouncy balls, hot dog chunks, or small Legos. I was fresh out of choking hazards, so I did what mamas do when a baby is wailing and calm needs to be restored. I decided to nurse him.
Standing in the pastor’s study, I hoisted the yards and yards of fabric up and under my chin. Then I had to lift my entire dress to num-num heights. I prayed that nobody would walk in.
Nobody walked in.
Tommy calmed. No crying he made.
By the time I heard our cue, a certain song, he was sleeping.
I let the fabric fall around my feet and carried him on stage.
