Thank you so much for posting this wonderful script on the web.  We are a small start-up school with 20 children grades 2-6 and we were able to perform like stars!  The children loved the play and now truly understand (and can recite) the entire Christmas story.  We did alter one section; we exchanged the baby for a toddler from our preschool for a visit from the magi.  It was awkward but cute.

We again thank you.  Our performance on Dec 15th was a huge success.

I had contacted you back in February of this year regarding the script for The Christmas Story with several questions. I am from the Church of the Good Shepherd in Pitman, New Jersey and this was the first time in about 25 years that our church had had a pageant. My wife and I volunteered to produce and direct it. We are both retired and it seemed to make sense to us for us devote the time to it. After much research on the internet, back in February, we selected your wife, Louis's, script and shortly thereafter contacted you via email. We were nervous and unsure how to proceed. You sent our request for guidance to several churches that you knew had produced it. Two of them got back to me with some helpful information.

At any rate we started to put the pageant together. It became a ten month effort. We had the pageant this past Sunday, Dec 13. It was very successful, way beyond our dreams when we started.

Since it was 25 years since our last pageant we were starting almost from scratch. We realized that our first task would be to raise money for costumes, set and props. Our first fund raiser was a bake sale in April. Our priest had told us that we could not sell anything at our fund raisers which put a real twist into our efforts. We asked for donations based on what the purchaser thought it was worth. We actually were fairly successful with the first one. Then we had a Mother's Day flower give away asking for donations. Next a Father's Day tape measure give away. Then a Spaghetti Dinner. There also were some other minor fund raisers. We ended up raising over $1500 dollars.

Over the summer my wife and I reviewed the script deciding what stage directions were needed, what props, what costumes, and what set pieces. Then we recruited volunteers to make the set and props and costumes. We must have had about 20 adults working on various aspects during the summer.

In September we started recruiting children from the Sunday School to play various roles. We were surprised that not all the children wanted to participate but we did get 35 to sign up. After sign ups were done my wife and I assigned roles based on age and ability.

Rehearsal of lines started November 1 supervised by parent volunteers. By the end of November we started rehearsals in the Church - which is where it had been decided to hold the pageant. We had two full rehearsals in the church following Sunday services and a dress rehearsal on the Saturday morning prior to the performance.

The Pageant was held on Sunday following regular services. We had a group of volunteers prepare a lunch for all in attendance at church that Sunday. The congregation was at lunch while a group of men set up the stable, platform extension, curtain, lights, sound and arranged props. It was truly a team effort and brought together people that had not had contact with one another before. This was truly one of the great side accomplishments of this pageant.

The Pageant started at 12:30PM and lasted about 30 minutes. Although not everything went as planned the congregation enjoyed it and did not realize there were problems. The Pageant was followed by a dessert reception in our Parish Hall.

I hope I have not taken up too much of your time but thought you might be interested in what happened. The great things about this Pageant were the team effort and fantastic imaginations of members of our congregation. In fact some of the older members came to us afterward and said that we had ch alleged them beyond their expectations.

Thanks for your help.

I do have some pictures if you would like to see them I will try to get some of them together and email them to you.

If you want to share this with other churches that is fine with me.

Tom Rigg
trigger870@yahoo.com
December 2009