The world can be roughly divided into two kinds of mothers; those whose offspring consistently land a starring role in the school Nativity play every year, and those whose little darlings are routinely relegated to the part of 'crowd member', back-end of the donkey or - worst of all - bale of hay. (Yes, I actually know someone whose child was cast as a hay bale...)
Which one are you?
My own kids are both narrators this year, but in the past they've been sheep, travellers (as in people travelling to Bethlehem, not gypsies, I hasten to add) and - my personal favourite - aliens. I think they must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel to find enough parts for the whole class that year.
I adore the Nativity with a passion - no other event in the school calendar can reduce me to a snivelling mess at the same time as making me feel positively aglow with Christmas cheer - but I am hearing some cracking stories from other mums about everything from the ridiculous demands being issued from their child's school for Nativity costumes, to the lengths some mums are prepared to go to in order to land their child a lead role.
So I laughed out loud when I read this piece in the Telegraph about the tantrums, foot-stamping and rivalry that are routinely provoked by the school Nativity play - and that's just among the mums. Get this:
"In extreme cases, parents have been known to take their grievances direct to rival parents, as one mum recounts: “My daughter was picked quite out of the blue as the main part in a school play. One of the mums whose child normally got the main role came up to me and said, 'I don’t understand why your daughter has got the part. There isn’t anything special about her.’ ” Practise your hard stare in advance."
So c'mon. Hit us with your best (worst?) Nativity play horror stories...
Image credit: Flickr/Ian Turk
Comments