Epiphany Celebration 2020
Greetings to everyone.
Today is the ecclesiastical celebration of Epiphany.
At the church we attend, the normal sermon/homily is replaced by the children telling and acting out the story of Jesus' birth, the shepherds and the wise men.
Xavier wanted to be in the show this year, and (unlike last year) we had it in our calendar to get to church early enough to let him be in the show.
Xavier was excited right up until we started down the hall to the dressing room area. Then, he decided he wanted to sit in the pews with mom and dad.
It took five to ten minutes of working with him to convince him to join the cast.
The initial "it'll be fun" etc. gave way to mom's declaration "you're going to do it." Still, that did not help.
We looked at the available costumes, going through cows, horses, ponies and lambs. We even found a chicken costume, which we tried to tie into Minecraft: "it's a Minecraft chicken" we told Xavier.
It was to no avail. We pulled him to the side and asked him to talk through his fear of joining the cast. His explanation distilled into a single phrase: stage fright.
We talked him through the stage fright by promising him mom and dad would get seats close to the front of the church. That assuaged his concerns.
Mom helped him dress as a chicken, and dad headed to the sanctuary to make good on the promise of close-up seating.
After that, Xavier was good to go.
His Halloween costume from 2018 was the homemade mouse costume. We donated it to the church. A young girl, four or five, thought the Manger Scene could use a mouse and wore Xavier's donation.
You can see the mouse sitting between Joseph and the bear.
Xavier said afterward he was glad he joined the cast. When asked why he did not keep his chicken head on, he explained he could not see with it on his head.