To ask who/what YOU were in the Christmas or Nativity?

[DoTheHop]

The only one I remember is when I was 12 and I was Snow White. I have no idea whether I ever featured in previous plays. I was a desperately shy child and I remember absolutely hating being Snow White as I was on stage alone a lot. I don't recall any nativities?

One year I rebelled about being a narrator and insisted I be part of the main action so I got to be a dancing peasant with no lines. It was the medieval Mummers' play with St George, Father Christmas, the Doctor, the Turkish Knight etc - a bit ambitious for year 4 in retrospect.

I was always the narrator and I speak fairly nicely 😏

I remember all our primary school plays apart from third year juniors (year 5) which is a complete blank. I don't know what I was doing that year!
They were: nativity, nativity, nativity/ A Necklace of Raindrops double bill (infants); Pinocchio; the aforementioned Mummers Play; black hole in my memory (possibly Robin Hood?); weird and probably borderline racist play about Chinese people the headmistress had written, which I now realise was a mash up of various Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and which included the songs Three Little Maids From School and With Cat-like Tread.

I was a shepherd (tea towel and dressing gown), a narrator and the mum baking cookies in some odd skit about a family telling the nativity story. I just played with the oven the whole time and got told off. I always wanted to be an angel but my school always chose little girls with blonde hair for those roles!

At my primary school, Y2 always did the nativity, and I was selected to be Mary as I had a really cute singing voice. Don't know what's happened to that since, haha.

Anyway I cried and said I didn't want to do that, and ended up being a carol singer instead - still singing, but with a group.

I never told my mum as I knew she would be angry with me, as she was one of those parents who loved her children being the best, so having her daughter as Mary would have really pleased her. She found out from the teacher on the day of the play though, as they said what a shame she didn't want to be Mary :(. She was very frosty with me for a good while after that, as some other parents overheard, and she felt it cost her some 'playground points'.

I was an angel most years and once I was Mary, never again as I dropped baby Jesus off the stage

My talent was never recognised I wasn't an attractive girl - I was always a peasant or a non-descript angel. I rebel now by mouthing 'Mary was raped' and 'It's a GIRL!!'.

I have been a Chinese person and a Hawaiian person in a nativity before. It also featured native Americans. Not sure about the cultural appropriation looking back at it.

In primary 1 I was a 'village child' and in P2 a narrator.

Only infants did nativities in my school and the narrators were always P2s with the major roles (Kinds, Joseph, Mary) always going to P1s.

A dancing reindeer and another time I was a snake charmer for King Herod!

Usually angels! Once got to be the star (ie the year 6 who had to make sure all the little angels did what they were supposed to)

Angel Gabriel aged 8, mum and I went to Woolworths to buy a pair of white knickers to wear underneath the white cotton robe.

'Behold I bring you tidings of great joy.....'. I can still remember most of my lines.

I was always Angel Gabriel because I had blonde hair, was confident and tall and had a mother who could sew. In nursery apparently the shepherds all got stage fright so I said all of their lines too [santa]

The first year dd was in school she was just in the choir but then the school realised I could sew and she was then promoted to Narrator (a plum role as had lots of words). I learned from my mother that having a parent who could sew meant a good role .

She always got a star role in the class assemblies too - perhaps because she was tall and confident but also because the teachers knew that they could ask Mrs WeirdCat to make 30 waistcoats and she would

I was a donkey. Not "the" donkey, just a background donkey in the stable. I was desparate to be an angel because I wanted to wear the tinsel halo but that went to the blonde haired, blue eyed, dimpled cheeked girl in my class (I had a brown page boy cut). A few years later I had a starring role on the glockenspiel.

Despite being a very shy child, I always dreamed of having a starring role in the school play (part of the desire was that, in my child's brain, I thought I would wow everyone with my transformation from shrinking violet to oscar winning performance). However, I became type cast at the age of 6 as a specialist at playing small- animals-not-really- involved-in-the-story. I was a rat in Aladdin (and again in some made up story I can't remember the following year, as I had the costume), mouse in Robin Hood and non specific woodland creature in a nativity.

I had a promise of being narrator in the final year of junior school (a sought after role, only awarded to those who were good readers with clear voices) but moved from a Northern town to the South East at the start of the year and was informed that I could not be the narrator as I didn't pronounce things 'properly' (my northern vowels seemed to be the issue). So I got to be... (drumroll please).. a mouse!

My school did plays by key stage, so reception and year one were chorus for the play itself and sang carols and recited poems in the little pre-play/main feature build up. I was the narrator for our "Festival of Light" main feature presentation when we were in yr 2. Was the biggest part! Loved it!

Was a king- the only king with lines- in yr 3, we did a yr 3&4 show case and we got to do the nativity play, one of a pair of narrators in a mostly singing play in yr 4- not loads of lines but got to be in every scene & act and sing.

I went to a 3-18 school and in Yr 5 we had a whole school carol service for the millenium and I got chosen out of the whole junior dept to give a reading in church. Yr 5& 6 were lumped into the yr 7&8 senior "autumn term play" so chorus in pilgrims progress and some random recital on the theme of "dreams". Think I did the senior school panto once before the arsehole music master took it over and turned it into a musical every year- I liked proper acting. However I was a chapel and/or chamber chorister all through senior school and sixth form and always read in chapel or church too, so was hardly under employed for Xmas, especially the school I went to for VI form where the carol service was the main thing.

I was angel Gabriel in my first ever nativity and didn’t tell my Mum so she was mightily surprised come performance day. I remember being a French hen when we did a 12 Days of Christmas performance. I was usually the narrator tbh because I went to drama school so I could remember the lines and project my voice well.

Never had a nativity in my whole life

Narrator X2
Innkeeper x1 when I was 7,I still remember my lines 😂

I was usually the narrator at school but my moment of fame came at Brownies when i was (preens) Mary

Age 5, Shepherd. Speaking part - "I will eat this apple rosy red" no idea why said shepherd was eating an apple ,

I was Mary in my last year of primary school. The school nativity play was always held in the local Catholic church in a town with fewer non-white families than I can count on my fingers; it caused some consternation amongst the congregation when little brown-skinned Mary made her appearance.

I was Mary both in the school nativity play and in the church that year. I was unbelievably proud of myself.

I was a shepherd once. Usually I was just an elf or fairy.

Angel, sheep or shepherd. Until they realised I had a photographic memory and after that I was always narrator and prompter.