Nativity

Last week in my 4 year old’s bag was a request, ‘Please send in brown trousers and a brown long sleeved T-shirt as your son has been chosen to play the Ox in the nativity, please encourage him to learn these lines,

Have you brought a present for the baby King?

Have you bought a special gift just to give to him?’

Wow, I thought brave, giving a kid with speech difficulties two lines, OK, so they don’t really make sense and a talking Ox? Still, better get to it and teach him them.

……and so I began,

‘Right son, repeat after me, Have you brought a present for the baby King?

Have you bought a special gift just to give to him?’

‘No’ says number one son.

‘Ha, ha’, I say, ‘No son, I want you to say it’ (I break into strange over enunciated story voice) – ‘Have you brought a present for the baby King? Have you bought a special gift just to give to him?’

‘No!’ says number one son looking a little perplexed.

‘No, no, no’ I say ‘You have to say it! I’m not asking you!’ after about half an hour of this, I decide to let him practice it at school a bit first, maybe they haven’t started it yet, as he really doesn’t seem to have a clue what I’m talking about!

As the date of the big show due ever nearer I was worried he refused to say these lines and checked,

‘Are you the only Ox?’

‘No, Faisel is an ox too’

Phew, I thought they must have coupled a good speaker with a less able one to do the lines together, yet still he didn’t really seem to understand what was going on.

I was a little sad that due to work commitments I wouldn’t be able to see the nativity but careful what you wish for folks because, the baby’s ear drum burst- gallons of seeping yellow gunk,  blowing all work out of the water and leaving me free to watch with a snuggled, sleeping, doped up tiny one on my lap.

In came the children to the hall, mammoth proportions, 15 of each character, angels, kings, shepherds, sheep, stars, donkey's and oxen – lots and lots of nose picking, play with your hat, yawning, mucking about oxen…..I began to see the peer group my son was in.

The nativity was a little under rehearsed, but pretty cute, the angels did a dance, the kings did a march, the shepherds and sheep a song, the stars a rhyme even the donkey’s did a sort of thing.

The oxen remained, bare foot on the gym mat all in brown trousers and paper bands around there heads with paper ears stapled on.

The lines I’d attempted to teach were a repeat throughout the show said by all – except of course most of the oxen including my little calf who all seemed oblivious to the holy story unfolding all around them.

I told him he was the best ox I’d ever seen and that I was very proud of him……..and I was!