To feel just a little bit sad that DD isn't Mary in her Nativity Play

[Bearwantsmore]

... I know, I know! But if you can't admit it on Mumsnet, where can you?!

the older two dcs go to a small village school, they're in a mixed room and there's only 80 odd kids in the whole school. The teachers have obviously struggled to create roles for all these children and the school is too small to do a play per class, and the village too villagey to leave a single child out.

So far they've mentioned mary, joseph, shepherds, innkeepers, kings, angels, many and varied lifestock, a news reader, a weather girl and a stage manager

DD is an angel, a very Mediterranean looking angel it must be said. as far as I can make out 90% of the girls are angels

ds1 is a donkey [proud]

DS (4) says he is going to be a king in his nursery thingy (I think, he was sobbing, poor love) but he seems very stressed about it and says that he would rather sit on my knee and watch it. He hasn't understood that he can't do both at the same time and thinks he will be able to watch himself. .

When he gets to the age when he can help with the lighting and scenery he will be in clover - he loves making things and knowing how things work - but I feel a life on the stage might not be beckoning him.

I'm going to have a word on Thursday when he's next in and ask them if he has anything to worry about or if he can do what 90% of the kids will be doing, which is to sit on the floor in blank incomprehension with a paper hat on, wave at the parents and join in with the bits of "Rudolph" that they recognise while the handful of older ones do their lines with a bit of help.

I bawl my eyes out every year.

Here is one solution - quite amusing reading

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364265,00.html

My beautiful DS is going to be a Innkeeper - he seems happy about it , await costume envy if his isn't the best. He is little for his age - tallest boy is Joseph. Very proud. Wasn't surprised that the pushy Mum's children are Angels, Mary & Kings.

I was Mary twice & Gretel once - not many girls in class as very small primary & I had brown hair.............. I just wanedto be an Angel & cetainly not Gretel as Hansel was played by smelly boy (!).

Ds is Herod?!! Dd has been an inn keeper and a cat. No starring roles in this house.

My son was Joseph in Nursery.... I was told VERY firmly it was because he was the only boy taller than 'Mary' and he WOULD NOT have lines not would he be required to sing....

The writing was on the wall perhaps?

Fast forward through disasterous school placements, being sat in rooms alone for assemblies, in a chorus for plays and generally being excluded and ignored, especially since ASD diagnosis....

Yr 4 play - he was 'Boy 2'
He had a costume
He had dances to remember
Songs to sing
And MN he had LINES to say

His teacher's bum was probably twitching as much as mine but he stood up there and did it beautifully!

I cried all the way home... please dont take it for granted MNetters - its just wonderful when they are included in whatever way....

BUT sorry I think I win the prize for having the bestest 'Boy 2' in the WORLD

My DD was offered the part of Mary when she was at nursery, but turned it down because she wanted to be a shepherd like her brother. Yes, I know I should be proud she is showing feminist leanings already, but I was gutted

In Year 2 my class teacher asked me what I would like to be in the nativity. I said an angel & was told that there weren't going to be any angels that year, which startled me rather. Didn't cross my mind it was an outright lie, which of course it was When we started rehearsals I asked about the angels, I was told angels had to have long blonde hair. I had lovely blonde hair, but it was bobbed. Like an Early Italian Angel, in fact, which I pointed out to my (horrible mean) teacher. I had to be the narrator & had a vile tinsel-trimmed cape which irritated my skin so badly it looked (& felt!) as though someone had tried to garrotte me with barbed wire. That teacher was absolutely toxic though: she made my last year at the Infant School pretty miserable

In Year 6 I was picked to play Mary which was a HUGE deal. There was a LOT of bitterness about that & grumbling that I had been picked because my mother had died that year. Yes, that well known method of allocating parts in order of who's had the most traumatic experiences Ironically, it was actually my classmates who were responsible for my getting the part: our teacher asked who the best singer in the class was & everyone (bar me!) said "Zebra". It was only later they discovered she was asking because she needed a Mary who could sing & several of the girls were furious as they felt they'd somehow been tricked! The headmistress always dressed Mary herself & used her time arranging the costume to her satisfaction to talk about how playing The Blessed Virgin was a great privilege & a big responsibility. Just in case I wasn't nervous enough about the whole thing. There was almost a bit of extra drama when the Angel Gabriel put in an appearance because the hall floor was polished ahead of the performance so when I fell backwards in terror I almost went sliding away into the Parish Priest! The dance teacher had an epic strop that year because she was told she couldn't have me for the dance which finished the Christmas performance (that year each class had done something separate as a "gift" to the Headmistress on her retirement, lucky her) because the final scene of the Nativity was being held as a tableau during the dance & the Virgin Mary couldn't very well nip off even if there WAS no shortage of potential childcare what with the shepherds & wisemen & angels of course Joseph...

In the Infant School each year did something separate:

• In nursery I was a reindeer & really quite jealous of my friend Kitty getting to have a red nose rather than a black one because she was Rudolph. I also got very annoyed (we were a reindeer choir) with the inability of the other nursery children to understand that we were bringing good tidings to the audience's KIN not their KING.
• In Reception I was A Little Girl On Christmas Eve. My "boyfriend" (he used to leave me love letters in my tidy-tray & there was once a Scandal when L wrote herself a letter & claimed it was from him - luckily for B I knew immediately it was a forgery because of the handwriting) was my brother. To my mind it was absolutely the best role & I took it Very Seriously.
• In Year 1 I was part of the kingly entourage. I had to wear something that was a bit like a yellow sack & was (along of my fellow miniontypes) selected for the role because I could be trusted to carry the gift carefully! It transpired in rehearsal that I also had an unsuspected talent for Bowing Beautifully so I had to teach everyone who turned up to admire Baby J how to bow properly. It was a tough job, I tell you. In the Juniors, up to Year 6 we did a musical written specially for us by our very talented music teacher:
• In Year 3 I was in the choir. I also played the recorder: in a group with girls from years 5 & 6 but I also had some solos. I had to sit on the back row of the choir next to the piano & surreptitiously sidle to the other side of it when I was needed to play.
• In Year 4 my class were peasants Villagers And Pilgrims. I was in charge of my group so had Lines & was on stage longest & danced a solo. I played the recorder again that year too.
• In Year 5 my class were clowns. In what was, on reflection, quite blatant favouritism, dressed in the incredibly pretty clown costume a girl in another class had worn for her dance-school's show. Our class teacher designed us all different make-up to match our costumes so mine was pink & lilac with a little yellow The dance teacher wanted me to be Lead Clown but she said she needed someone who could be relied on to be at every rehearsal & I said I couldn't do it then because I was bound to be off sick at least once I was given a smaller solo & made lead of the first group instead...

Yeah, it's always the blonde kid who is Mary. Actually, the casting for dd's nativity last year did strike me as a bit racist - the white, blonde kids were Mary, Joseph and Angel Gabriel and the dark skinned children were the 3 kings etc. and my dd didn't get the starring role she deserved, bastards.

Op, the teacher casting your dd's nativity is obviously a moron

I was a goose-a-fucking-laying.

dd1 is santa this year! Really chaffed as been angel 3 times already

Ps great stealth boasting, Zebra

I can't believe you lot have the joy of watching a 'proper' nativity play, TBH. I'd be chuffed to bits! My lot have done 'The Grumpy Sheep', 'The Shiniest Star' and something bizarre that involved a penguin setting off to find Santa - traipsing across Africa meeting camels at one point. I have watched bemused for years at productions that wander far from the traditional (a little like Emma Thompson in 'Love Actually' saying in startled tones to her child "There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus"?) I wouldn't mind so much but they are in a CofE village school!

Saying that, my last DS appears to be cast in a somewhat 'bovine' role. (Despite looking angelic with blonde curls and big blue eyes). So far he has been a donkey, a reindeer, and a cow. I am glumly waiting for 'ox' this year...

It's a shame Jospeh wasn't a Morman or a Muslim. There could have been a whole class-full of Marys then.

I was promoted from Tree to Bear once. Best moment of my primary school life. I got to sit on the front of the stage and talk to my brother, who was sitting on the floor in front of the stage with the rest of the kindy kids.

DD has been asked to play a sheep in church nativity. She's supposed to be carried around by a 12 year old boy and then sit quietly with him during the tableau. She's 18 months and can't sit still for 20 seconds unless you're feeding her.

Give him a handful of grass to carry in the other hand, wank...

Blimey Zebra, you've got a good memory.

I suppose I must have been something or other in at least one Nativity play, but I genuinely do not remember who/what, never mind details about the teacher, who stood where, and who else was picked for what, and all the politics of the whole thing.

In preschool DS1 was supposed to be a villager. But Joseph had an attack of stage fright & DS1 was upgraded at the last minute. He spent the entire performance sitting in the middle of the stage requesting things from the audience "has anybody seen my mummy & daddy? Can you see them?" then barked orders at the audience to "DANCE!" during the songs. This was however completely outdone by DS2. A few weeks before I was approached by them to ask if they could "borrow" 4mo DS2. He would only be carried by nursery staff, would be supervised at all times and the manger was fairly big. Stupidly I agreed. In he came (in a white babygro, was the closest I could find to swaddling bands) to much cooing by other parents. He then lay in the manger and proceeded to fill his nappy. Loudly, with some effort. As if it wasn't bad enough DS1 then added "DS2, you've got a trumpy bum".

I genuinely didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I was Mary in a musical nativity. It was horrible. The girl who was Angel Gabriel was so desperate to be Mary she picked on me for weeks. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
I did laugh at a nursery party this week when the Mam's were discussing parts. The child who is Mary is really funny/ non pushy parent and the other mothers were visibly gutted.

DD1 has been a snowflake (nursery), a Donkey (yrR), last year she was 2nd angel from the left. This year the play is called 'The Bossy Fairy' and she has she starring role. It is pure type casting (she is far from the most confident reader though, as the youngest in her year, so I am am very glad the teacher took the risk, as it has really helped her).

Ds is always the choir soloist, apart from the year he was an alien. Dd1 can't carry a tune in a bucket, the bossy fairy doesn't really sing alone.

I was always in the choir. Apart from my final primary year. I was in 2 productions in the same term- as Aunt Sponger in 'James and the Giant peach', and Princess Aurora in a panto of the Sleeping Beauty, that the headmaster wrote. no-one wanted to do the kissing bit, my headmaster hated me . Bit different, role wise!

We always cast the weaker girls to be Mary. Dark hair helps. And a willingness to sit still. Joseph always a blonde boy (must have his wits about him to sort donkey/innkeeper)

I am destined to be the mother of a narrator for ever

*not a stealth boast. DS has ASD and cannot stand on the stage, only the side.

I remember being in reception, and the teacher asked me if I wanted to be an angel. I flatly refused on the grounds is was Mary or nothing. I was in the chorus.

Ds 1 was always the narrator because he has big gob clear voice, although he did make it to second shepherd one year. Ds 2 was Joseph last year. It wasn't until I went to see it that I remembered that joseph is actually a bit of a rubbish role cos all he does is sit there!

I think this would be the perfect activity in the run up to Xmas, you take little Mary join the queue and get to watch them forget their lines, go the wrong way and pick their nose for 20 mins, then onto the next one [frin]

Just asked ds1 (Y2) what he will be doing and he still doesn't know if it will be a part or a reader.

Our school only has Y1&2 in the nativity and only Y2 do the speaking bits. Dd2 in Y1 is part of the chorus.