Mary the blonde and Joseph the cowboy!

By Anis Albasha

Christmas is a very special occasion in many countries around the world, specially in the West. Even though we don't celebrate Christmas, we enjoy the festive atmosphere that accompanies this occasion here in Germany. We can feel the charming ambiance when we go outside and look at the Christmas decorations which make its mark on every corner of the city. All shops are decorated with bright colors and sparkling lights. The City's shopping Mall looks so beautiful with all the giant Christmas trees and the cascade of bright lights in every corner. Even the houses are decorated with bright colors, Christmas window lights, garlands and candles. 

Schools are also decorated for Christmas and have special Christmas events for their students. This year, Christmas was special as we were invited by my son's school to a Christmas party 'Weihnachtsfeier' and to watch a nativity play 'Krippenspiel' performed by my son's classmates. 

It was the first time for us to see our son playing a role in a play. The class teacher distributed the roles to the children and trained them on the speaking lines which would be performed by each child. My son was given the role of Saint Joseph. He brought from the school a paper with the dialogue of all the characters in the play. Because he was so excited about the show, my son memorized not only his dialogue, but he also memorized all the speaking lines of the other characters. It was fun watching him rehearse his role and repeat the dialogue many times with enthusiasm.   

The speaking lines of the nativity 

In order to be prepared for his role, we had to buy a suitable costume for our son. So, we looked on the Internet to find out costumes which are suitable for the role of Saint Joseph. But the costumes we found were expensive, given the fact that we wanted a costume for a 30 minutes play. Therefore, we decided to go with the German way in such cases which is usually practical and less expensive. A German mother told us that we had to buy a gunny sack and make holes for the head and the arms. She assured us that this would fit as a costume for St. Joseph's role. As a grandmother of one of the boys’ later commented, as a poor man, St. Joseph wouldn’t be able to afford buying an expensive dress!

So, I went with my son to buy a gunny sack. My son, who was expecting to wear a classy costume, felt surprised when I started measuring a number of sacks in order to pick up one of them. I then explained to my son that this jute sack would be a suitable outfit for his role as St. Joseph. The jute sack cost me six euro. Later at home, my wife made the necessary holes and we helped our son putting the outfit on to see how it looked. Though our son was not completely content with the improvised costume, the gunny sack looked nice on him. We didn’t  worry about what he had to put on his head because the class teacher already told the kids that she would provide suitable ‘headwear’ for the cast.

Having the food for the open buffet and our son’s costume for the play, we headed towards the school. We waited in the classroom with other parents until one of the teachers told us that the show was about to began. We went downstairs to the area which was set for the play. When the show started, we couldn’t help but notice how spontaneous and talented the kids were. The characters, the overture, the dialogue, the prologue, the monologue, everything was nice and tidy. Though they did it for the first time in front of an audience, there were no mistakes or fluff. Even those who just did the walk-on during the play were natural. I had no idea if the kids had already made many rehearsals before that day or if they are innately talented. But I can say for sure that they were amazing and they did a very good job.

Our son’s part was a duologue with another girl from his class who acted as Mary in the play. It was really funny when my son stole a glance at his mother while performing his part. My wife and I noticed that our son was wearing a fashionable cowboy hat which contrasted sharply with that shabby gunny sack he wore. We have also noticed that many children who acted in the play wore modern hats. Those modern hats in the play reminded us about the funny, yet incorrect western perception of Jesus as a Caucasian man with blonde hair and blue eyes! Perhaps that was the only flaw in the show, but it did not diminish the magnificence of the actors' performance as well as the very good preparation of the show.  

The children were so happy and proud when their play was greeted with a loud applause by the audience. Then we went up to the classroom and started eating and talking while the kids were playing happily. Before we left, and under the guidance of the class teacher, we all sang some Christmas songs. Of course, my wife and I did not know any of those songs so we read the lyrics from small booklets which were distributed among the parents. I have noticed that there were some German parents who did like us and read from those booklets.

You don't have to be a believer to enjoy religious celebrations. The gathering at our son’s school along with the show which was performed by the kids on that evening added another nice flavor to the festive atmosphere, aside from the fact that Joseph in the play was wearing a cowboy hat and Mary was blonde!