Christmas Eve

The year (1981) that Hayden was born and George Torhmolen became Colonials' Minister was the first time we attended the Christmas Eve service at Colonial. Up until then we had a candlelighting Service at home. There we gathered all the candles in the house that we could find a holder for and followed a service Steven had gotten from his Sunday School teacher while we still lived in Topeka. After doing the service we drank eggnog and the kids went to bed. The year that Hayden was born in September they asked Sally and Howard if she could be Baby Jesus in the church pageant so we all went to church that year.

The pageant had already been held at least one year with adults. Joni Holcomb and Gail Heath had been in charge. Gail Heath said Dave Kenicott was Joseph and his red headed daughter was Mary. The kings were Frank Roberston, Russ Waesche and Bob Starcke. Jan Parkinson was a shepherd. One of the angels was Chris Ericson. Jan said that they all had to get their own costumes and he was a shepherd and found a bathrobe that had fur down the front that he used. Joni didn't like the costumes very well so she worked on it during the year and has kept an eye on it ever since. They used high school students in it for shepherds and angels and wisemen. The first year they had a king - Russ Waseche and he sang. We don't have a king anymore. We call them wisemen. They baby she was not sure of but thinks it was Sharon and Denny Horns son. Gail didn't have pictures of the baby as she said it cried and the mother took it back. Gail helped with it until 1985 when she moved. She had fond memories of it. They year Hayden was the baby they decided to just use high school students. George Torhmolen's comment that he had not realized Jesus was a girl. We enjoyed it so much we have always attended since. In that time Stacy, Hayden, Frances, and Morgan have been Mary, Frances was baby Jesus the year she was born. Jason, a stepson, was Joseph and a wiseman for a couple of years. They have all been narrators and angels and shepherds. Alex, another stepson, was involved but didn't want to do it so he did lighting, which is very important.

The year Morgan was Mary the angel standing beside her fainted and it scared the baby. If the baby cried it was given back to their parents and Mary held a doll. Last year there was a mix up on getting the baby to Mary and Hayden could not stand that so she went and got the baby and put it in Mary's lap. This baby was older tan some and was wearing tennis shoes. They baby should be born in October so who will be this year?

Mary and Joseph are always high school seniors. The middle school students are the shepherds and sometimes an angel. The wisemen are generally boys and high school but they have used tall girls. The narrators are sometimes college students home for Christmas. Holly has been an angel and a shepherd.

There are two other services on Christmas Eve. I've only been to the eleven o'clock one as Ray agreed we would usher. It is all music. I'm not sure what the eight o'clock one has. At first the family had dinner at one of our houses but they have been stopped for quite a while, as they were too busy on Christmas Eve. If we had it at Huggin's house we used the candlelighting service we had used when they were small.

In 2008 my granddaughter Holly was an angel with a speaking part. We had to use a doll for Jesus as the baby who was waiting on the front row parents changed their minds. I liked the doll.

I think it might have been 2002 Hayden was Mary again. Our minister wanted an outside Nativity scene separate from the one inside. Someone loaned us real sheep and we had them in a pen outside the church on the lawn. The week before Christmas Eve we put on an hourly nativity scene, I volunteered as a Wiseman. The rest of the family were in on it. I had trouble being a Wiseman because I thought they came from the east and who wrote the play had us come from the west. Hayden was Mary. We put it on about three times every night in the week before Christmas.