In the Bleak Midwinter — A Christmas Pageant continues

 Soundtrack of “Mary Did You Know?” from the pageant

Avondale United Methodist Church planned its Christmas Pageant for Sunday, Dec. 22. We got an ice storm that Saturday night,  followed by about 2 inches of snow.

So they postponed the Children’s Christmas Pageant until Sunday, Jan. 5 — the 12th day of Christmas.

This time the night before there was no ice, but about 3 inches of snow and it got very cold. But this time the show went on.

The cast had quite a bit of flexibility, parts being recast as necessary by who showed up. The area was under a winter weather warning, and people were encouraged to stay home if they thought it too dangerous for them to come out.

Living just up the hill from the church, my family walked down to church, as always, and arrived to find the substitute accompanist for the service unable to make it due to the weather. Since I am something of the resident substitute, I offered to step in.

The pageant, an adaptation of “God’s Angels’ by Peggy Woon, was a reader’s theatre of the Christmas story, accented by congregational carol singing themed to the specific section of the pageant.

It revolved around three angels — Cherb, Gabriella and Angelica, played by Savannah Lindsay, Marianna Flores and Vianna Marsh — following assignments from God that helped point the principals in the Christmas story on the path to Bethlehem.

All three youth showed up and did an excellent job Sunday, keeping the pageant on track as they greeting Mary, Joseph, Shepherds and even the Wise Women (going undercover as the Star) to get everyone before the manger in Bethlehem.

The pageant was followed by a soup cook-off in Wesley Hall — a fund-raiser for the church youth group. About half the planned soups were on hand, due to no-shows from the storm. But since the crowd was probably less than a quarter of those who would regularly have been there, there was more than enough soup for all.

So just as the pageant was the second scheduling for its run, the soup cook-off is now planned for a rerun of its own.  There will be version 2 on Soup-er bowl Sunday, coinciding with the food drive for the church’s food pantry that is becoming an annual tradition of the sporting Sunday.