Children's nativity play and Christmas show mishaps: please share your favourites

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Hello,

We're busier than Santa's elves putting together some new content for Christmas. And we'd like your help, please.

What we're after are stories of your children's performances in Nativity plays, school Christmas shows, pantos etc, that didn't go exactly according to plan.

So outright disasters or just mistakes, bloopers, wardrobe or script malfunctions that made you giggle/blush/strangely proud, please share them here.

Thank you :)

[RockStockAndTwoOpenBottles]

DD1 aged 2 and a bit. We went to watch a 'production' of the Nativity at the church where a friend's child had a role. wine on offer after

DD1 watched carefully throughout, clearly enjoying the play. The vicar then got up to say a few thousand words at the end and DD1 said, very loudly and very clearly, 'who is that man in the dress anyway mummy, is he God?' Mortified doesn't really touch it.

Said vicar has never forgotten and commented on it the other day when I bumped into him. DD1 will be 18 this weekend, so clearly made a lasting impression.

[SolidGoldVampireBat]

DS' nursery did a nativity play notable for the Angel Gabriel picking her nose all the way through it. And, from my own childhood, though my mother was the one who witnessed it as it was my brother's class's nativity play - they had a load of kids sitting on a bench in front of the stage being the choir, and next to them was the school piano, upon which the school piano player used to pound away like Mrs Mills. On the end of the row was a DC of about 7 who, my mum said, was obviously not feeling too well and was going greener and greener as Mrs Pianowoman hammered those bass notes. As the final bellowed Alleluia ended, up jumped this poor little green-faced kid and puked his ring all over the floor.

[acsec]

In my 2nd year of teaching I was doing an RE lesson in the run up to Christmas and had an inspector in watching it. One of the activities for the children to do was to act out the Nativity. I was assisting a child who was doing some writing when I heard from the role playing group "King! Get me some coffee, my wife just had a baby!" I went over to investigate and was told "That's what they always say on Casualty, Miss!" The inspector was silently laughing away in the corner.

[Theas18]

Dd1 was 7 at church and very responsible. Hence she was allowed to borrow a real baby Jesus and wear a baby carrier with her in (lol) said baby was very sweet but poor dd kept getting possessed handfuls of milk!

[UniS]

DS age 3 in Preschool nativity- cast a Shepherd ( one of many), but he had only been at one rehearsal and wasn;t very sure about teh whole thing. No problem says staff, So I sat with him at teh side near teh other shepherds waiting. Ds started playing with my camera, I let him , he took a few pics of his friends dressed as shepherds. Then it was time for shepherds to move to do their song, DS went with them, with my camera.

He proceeded to stand centre stage taking pictures of the audience.

[mollymole]

My mother worked in a primary school in West Yorkshire and here is the scenario

Mary & Joseph knock at the door of the inn
Innkeeper opens door
Joseph ' do you have room at the inn for my wife and myself'
Innkeeper ' Mary can come in but you can piss off cos I wanted to be Joseph'

[bruffin]

When my niece was little she came home and insisted she had the part of "Inkypatoo" in the nativity. My puzzled dsis kept asking her about the part but she kept insisting she was Inkypatoo!
Turned out she was Inn Keeper 2

[Melty]

DN aged 3y as the innkeeper: You can't come in, we have no room. You have to go to that place:( cue DN screwing up his face as he tried to remember the word stable).
He improvised with "That place where the aminals are" and as poor Mary and Joseph shuffled sadly off with the donkey, he yelled "THE ZOO" and looked very pleased with himself. We were in hysterics.

[Melty]

Didnt mean to do a sad face there!

[MrsVoltar]

weeping with laughter at some of these!!

[WaitingForMe]

DSS1's have been great compared to all that!

The first year saw the children sitting down and making big circles with their arms. One little girl made such a big circle that she fell sideways off the stage. What was funny was the start of a laugh that was promptly silenced that emerged from every adult in the audience.

[PhylisStein]

In the final scene - a classic stable scene tableau - the angel gabriel centre stage standing behind Joseph and Mary - picked his nose very obviously during 'Away in a Manger' and wiped the resultant enormous and dangling bogey on the back of Mary's blue veil!

[StaceymAloneForver]

mollymole 'mary can come in but you can piss off* has just made me spit lemonade over my conputer screen thanks for brightening my day

[Afrikasmum]

Hi, new member here and enjoying all the stories immensely. DS is now a teenager and training to be an actor, but I well remember his first Christmas play when he was cast as one of the grumpy sheep. The look on his face didn't need much acting. However, I digress. Dear little Ruby decided to improvise her lines and marched onto the stage, shouting over her shoulder "Oh, come ON, Joseph".

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Thank you very much to everyone who has posted so far

[MsBrian]

ROFL @ these - Inkypatoo ha hahahahha

Sorry MNHQ I don't have a story yet, DS is currently rehearsing for his first ever X-mas play, I'm bound to have something to report after the event....

[SolidGoldVampireBat]

There are a few stories of naughty innkeepers that have almost reached urban legend status - this one was quoted by Jilly Cooper.
Little boy initially cast as Joseph/Angel Gabriel, but misbehaved and was demoted to innkeeper, therefore bided his time until the performance. And then delivered the killer line - 'Yeah, plenty of room, come on in.'

[BrigitBigKnickers]

DD2 was a confident little thing when she was three.

As a result she was picked for the part of the star and given the hallowed job of singing Twinkle Twinkle as a solo.

DD, dressed in silvery sparkles, stepped forward as the introduction started, opened her mouth and...

declaimed loudly "I need a wee wee..."

Her weak bladder was well known the the nursery teachers who all feel over themselves to whisk her off the stage before a puddle ensued.

[JentlyDoesIt]

DS was in his first nativity at nursery at the age of 13 months. He was given the partof a donkey. When the time came, he was carried in by one of the nursery staff, dressed in his little grey trousers, t shirt & ears, complete with a little face paint for good measure, it became very apparent that for true authenticity, he had created some "donkey droppings" of his own, immediately before being carried in.

They all sang "little donkey" whilst the green fog surrounded us parents then he was whisked out for a swift nappy change

I should not have read the rest of this thread whilst in a crowded Starbucks earlier... Got some very strange looks

[serin]

3 events spring to mind,

The nativity where DS2 ( then a trainee a cathedral choirister) took leave of his senses and loudly baa'ed his way through away in a manger..... that ended his career really.

The Christmas concert when DD's pompous headmaster was kneeling in the aisle conducting a carol and 3yr old DS1 broke free, ran down the aisle and jumped on his back, yelling "Aaaargh, I'm a power ranger". Headmaster fell flat on his face and couldn't look at me for months.

The local living nativity when Angel Gabriel was meant to abseil down the church bell tower but something went wrong and he was left dangling until the fire brigade rescued him. Like something out of the Vicar of Dibley

[SolidGoldVampireBat]

I am so loving this thread. And am not going to spoil it with the not-so-good nativity play trauma that blighted my final year of primary school.

But at least these days you generally don't have to make DC's costumes yourself. I mean, when we got the letter home from nursery the first thing I said to the staff was 'Do we have to make outfits?' and was delighted to hear that they had their own teatowels and sacks lined up.

[Tidybush]

I was helping out with the Christmas play that involved a group of children exchanging presents. They had to open the box their present was in and pretend to be really excited.

In every rehearsal one little boy got the box containing a doll. On the day of the actual public performance he opened his box and exclaimed "oh no, not the bloody doll again".

[YohoAhoy]

One year ds was a donkey in a very cute costume. Spent the entire performance sat next to Mary & Joseph, chewing his ears and being sporadically kicked from behind by Joseph. Intermittent hissing from the wings from teachers to stop him, a long pause, then "kick, kick, kick." Kicking wasn't hard and ds was largely unconcerned but as the nativity went on there was more and more suppressed giggling from the audience.

That was the same year Mary delicately sat down and hurled the baby Jesus into the crib with a resounding thump, where it stayed for the evening with only it's little feet showing through the straw. Slightly less well suppressed giggling from audience.

And now I remember that was also the same year one of the Kings, who was a tiny little boy, enthusiastically joined in the singing, and he had the most booming, deep voice. There was a moment of stunned silence from the audience, followed by positively desparate attempts to suppress giggles.

That was a good year

[Saltire]

DS2 was a snowman in the nursery school christmas play. His outfit consisted of his dad's white t-shite and a bowler aht and scarf. SO, while the play was going on and he wasn't involved he sat with the t-shirt over his head, with his pants on show. Realising this got a laugh he then sat like that all the more. Then to my utter embarassment, turned round,pulled down his pants and mooned at the audience. of course by the time it was his turn to perform, he decided to do the whole routine with the t-shirt held up to his chest.

[Sidge]

Not mine, but I shared a house after Uni with a girl who'd recently qualified as a primary school teacher.

She came home in fits after their Nativity to tell us that it had all gone spectacularly wrong when the inn-keeper, on being asked if there was room in the inn by Joseph, announced loudly and clearly

"yes! I've got loads of rooms, come in and choose one!"


My DDs school makes sure every child in KS1 has a role in the Christmas Play so we usually end up with 1 Mary, 1 Joseph, 1 Angel Gabriel, 1 baby Jesus, 3 Wise Men, 15 narrators, 18 shepherds, 23 stars, 6 donkeys, 14 sheep, 2 wolves, 3 cows, 9 horses, 7 rabbits and any other random animals they have costumes in the cupboard for. Last year we had a giraffe and a lion too