by ERMA JOHNSON
Beachburg
The excitement was literally palpable in our farm house beginning in late afternoon on December 24 — Christmas Eve. My sisters and I were busy practising the lines we were to say in the pageant in which we all had been assigned parts, saying over and over again our little recitations and humming and singing bits of the carols each of us had to sing. We wanted everything to be absolutely perfect!
All of us exchanged little gifts with our respective girl friends and of course we had to give a special gift to our Sunday School teacher as she always gave us a little gift. So, it was off to Cobden on the day prior to Christmas Eve to choose, with much care, little presents for our chums. I remember especially tiny bottles of apple blossom perfume perched jauntily in tiny plastic high-heeled shoes which I purchased from Sparling’s Variety for my girl friends. Boy! What style! We usually gave our Sunday School teacher little packets of mints or a nicely embroidered handkerchief. These little tokens cost very little but we took special care in wrapping each in the fancy Christmas paper we saved and ironed out flat from our Uncle Nelson Bell’s General Store and tying each up tightly with red cord string. He always used colourful Christmas paper and red cord string to wrap and tie stuff from his store around Christmas time. Christmas wrapping paper was never purchased.
After an early supper, we girls dashed upstairs to don our new dresses (we always got a new dress for the Christmas concert), new brown lisle or beige ribbed cotton stockings held up by suspenders attached to a corset-like, under shirt-like garment called a waist, and best of all new shoes. We thought we were as well decked out as Shirley Temple or Mary Pickford or any movie star of the era.
About 7 o’clock my dad would pull up close to the kitchen door with a team of horses, Dan & Barney as I remember, and with a sleigh covered with a bedding of straw. We had a car but it was put up on blocks for the winter as the roads were not plowed as well as they are today. I can still smell that musty-sweet smell of the straw and hear the clinking of the chains of the harness traces and see the puffs of steam being snorted from the horses’ nostrils. We did have an old buffalo robe to pull over us if we were too cold, but we were so excited that we never noticed the cold and could hardly wait to reach the church.
Our Sunday School Concert was like thousands carried out across Canada, but we only knew about ours and we were sure ours was the best. It was not a very long program and the Sunday School Superintendent was always the chairman for the performance, a position that made many superintendents nervous and uncomfortable. First, a short little recitation welcoming everyone was recited, usually by a young lad who often forgot the words and neglected to make his elaborate bow to the audience; or if a young girl recited the welcoming verse, she too often needed much prompting and also usually forgot to master the prim little curtsy to end her recitation. No matter the show was on!
Each class had to perform some selection whether it be a song, skit, drill or pantomime. Clearest in my memory is Mrs. Carmen Waite’s class. She was in charge of the wee ones and I mean wee. Most of her wards ran from one-and-a-half-years of age to five. She herded her flock of little angels the little girl angels with new clean white stockings and usually little plaid skirts and little boy angels sporting new sweaters ) around a rudely made cradle with a rather tattered looking doll resting on a scattered bunch of straw. Then they would all attempt to sing Away in a Manger. Mostly it was Mrs. Waite singing and trying to coax the kiddies to join in. The majority of the tiny carollers were usually more interested in waving to mom or dad or picking their noses or hitching up their new duds or trying to escape to visit the presents under the Christmas tree. It never mattered how well or how poorly the little ones performed, they always brought down the house! Everyone adores true innocence.
The various classes did their chosen piece. Younger classes usually had a message about Christmas told by an Acrostic theme. Each child would hold up a card with the corresponding letter such as C is for candy -H is for harmony, M is for the manger, etc. until the word Christmas had been spelled out. It ought to be pointed out, however, that often the order of the letters were mixed up as some kids got confused as to when their turn came and Christmas often took various forms. Many classes sang songs, some with actions. Intermissions between each of the acts was filled with short little poems about getting nothing for Christmas or mischievous little boys, or escapades with disobedient pets or other humorous situations. Little stories about angels and gift giving pointed out that Christmas was indeed a special time. All the kids were extremely nervous and excited and shifted their feet and had to be reminded umpteen dozen times to speak out louder.
The senior class usually put on a play wherein the family members often were fighting and generally showing selfishness and often being downright rude. During the course of this play, events would occur which brought enlightenment to all and everyone decided to be good and kind and carry out the true meaning of Christmas. There were always those in the community who were more talented than others at music or singing and they would be asked to sing a solo or perhaps a duet or play a piano piece Mrs. Irene Curry had taught them. Sometimes the choice of these special spots caused jealousies as we all know every parent thinks his or her child is the most important and most talented.
The grand finale was always a re-enactment of the Nativity Scene. As one of the older students would read the Christmas story from the Bible, various characters dressed in old bathrobes tied at the waist with braided binder twine and wielding cow-prodding canes as shepherd staffs, kids holding cardboard cut-out faces and bodies of lambs, cows, donkeys, oxen, camels etc., three characters with silky-type taffeta blouses or robes accented by gold braided ropes (actually trip ropes painted yellow) and wearing cut-out crowns covered with gold and silver foil wrap and carrying pretend gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh would all proceed down the aisle to visit and worship the Baby Jesus looked down upon adoringly by Mary (a girl wearing a blue shawl and a wire- constructed halo covered with white cotton batting above her head (which invariably fell off), and beside her Joseph, also in a tattered striped bath robe and sporting a scraggly beard fashioned out of brown and black yarn) staged around a cradle with baby Jesus (expropriated from Mrs. Waite’s class). In the background, the older students would sing appropriate snitches from the carols at appropriate times. For instance when the shepherds started their trek down the aisle, they would sing a bit of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night or for the arrival of the Wisemen, We Three Kings of Orient Area nd of course, Away in a Manger for the worshipping of the Baby Jesus.
At the conclusion of the program the Superintendent (in my memory, Mr. Maurice Bulmer) would step out from behind the curtains made from old sheets strung on a wire across the front of the stage and praise all the kiddies for their super talent and wonderful program and heap much thanks on the teachers for their selfless work. At an appropriate time, someone from the audience would announce that he thought he heard bells ringing outside the church and someone yelling, “Ho, Ho, Ho.”
Next week, read the conclusion as Santa arrives
