Around this time, many churches celebrate Advent, also known as the season when Christians prepare to celebrate Jesus’s birth at Christmas.
St. Ann Catholic Church of Janesville did just that with a short play depicting the Nativity and Jesus’s birth on Sunday, December 15. After mass, youth members from grades 1-5 participated in telling the story. Their version was directed by Carol Jewison, with Becky Borneke assisting and playing piano during the musical arrangements of “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Away in a Manger,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “We Three Kings,” and “Joy to the World.”
While it was a classic tale of the Nativity, there were some jokes thrown in there. One notable joke was that Joseph and Mary couldn’t ride on donkeys to Bethlehem because Mary wasn’t allowed a seat. Yep. A Rosa Parks joke in the middle of a play about Jesus’s birth. It generated many laughs. It was part of a running gag that the narrators “struggled” to remember the story of Jesus’s birth.
The play’s final scene encouraged everyone in the congregation who watched the play to spread the good news of Jesus’s birth to all. It was a fun play to watch, with many of the parents in the audience enjoying several laughs.
