The Christmas season boasts a lot of highlights, but nothing is quite as spectacular as a good old-fashioned Church Christmas Pageant. Homemade costumes, screechy singing, a Cabbage Patch Kid baby Jesus. Does it get any better?

There aren’t a ton of choice roles for girls in the Christmas pageant though, which is why I don’t have any pictures of myself looking especially Christmas pageant-y. There’s Mary, of course, and girls can also be angels (although the meatiest of those parts belongs to Gabriel — a boy). But I was never interested in playing Mary, aka someone who was having a baby. It didn’t matter if it was a starring role or that the baby was Jesus Christ. I had no desire to dress up in a pregnant costume, act out the process of giving birth, then happily hold a baby that had supposedly just come out of there, all in front of the entire church congregation. Being an extra in the choir of angels was the only way to go. You already saw this photo, but here I am (with the Rector, my little sister, and a photo bombing acolyte) after dutifully squeaking out several Christmas carols with the other angels in the chorus.

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