Betsy’s First Nativity Play

Now, I’m not religious. I class myself as a ‘lazy pagan’, but I was very much looking forward to seeing Betsy in her first ever Christmas Nativity. I bought 2 gold star costumes, with the intention of sewing both together. I chose the type with a face hole in the front, as the others featured a tall cone hat, which made the child look like part of a festive Ku Klux Klan.

With grandiose visions of Betsy’s adorable cherub face framed with gold at the front of the stage, I set to work. Would she try on her costume? Would heck. I tried for a week and then gave up until the morning of the play (today). We started off with a factor 4.5 toddler quake as she struggled free of her sparkly straight jacket and proceeded to let me know her distaste of this morning’s ensemble. I tried again. This time the eruption had more force, tearing the costume and causing a screaming tantrum that included: not liking what was on telly, not wanting to get dressed and not appreciating me trying to brush her hair.

We were now at 8.50am. Betsy was meant to be at nursery school at 9am and the Nativity was at 9.30am. I tried to salvage the costume as much as I could; sewing one panel onto the shoulders of one of her vests. This too was not a wanted alternative and the toddler quake reached a heady 8.5. With screams that only bats and dogs could hear, snot, kicking and tears, I eventually got the blasted thing on her.

At 9.10am I gave up all hopes of a starry vision of splendour and settled for a disgruntled, 4 pointed huff on legs.

I managed to drop her off just as they were getting ready to walk the little darlings to the hall and my heart dropped as I saw about 5 little girls, all wearing their star costumes beautifully… and boasting 5 points, no aggressive stitching onto vest tops or tears. It was what it was, she’s 2 so I couldn’t expect too much.

When the tots were walked onto the stage, they initially put Betsy behind all the more luxurious alpha stars. Every so often I could see her little head bob up behind a padded gold point. After ducking and diving around the hall I finally found a spot that I could see her more clearly (nestled between the recycling bin and a lady counting her raffle tickets). Betsy was doing a stellar job of grabbing fistfuls of straw out of the makeshift manger, whilst Mary was trying desperately to replace it and keep her composure.

In the end, Betsy was picked up and moved to the front. It was great seeing her singing along, even if her costume was more like a giant discarded gold sweet wrapper than a star. She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t picking her nose and she didn’t scream for Mama. That’s a plus in my book. Let’s see what her next one is like…