Ensure Your Child’s a Star in Their School's Nativity
Just when you thought you could put away your children’s dressing-up clothes for another year − now that Halloween has come and gone − their school announces its forthcoming nativity play. What’s more, your little ‘uns will need to be dressed in character. A deep sigh escapes your lips at the thought of another outfit to put together. But don’t stress! Help is at hand.Offering a wide range of girls’ and boys’ fancy dress nativity costumes, we can transform your child into the perfect Mary or Joseph, a realistic-looking donkey or sheep, or a regal king or lowly shepherd. And while we can’t ensure your daughter always acts like an angel, we can at least help her look like one in our girl’s fancy dress angel costume.
These are just some of the characters that feature in the typical school nativity play, which recreates the scene of the birth of Jesus Christ in a stable. In this traditional Christmas story, a baby is born in a stable in Bethlehem to a woman called Mary, who’s married to Joseph.
Before the baby is born, Mary is visited by an angel – the Angel Gabriel. This angel tells Mary that she’ll give birth to a baby who will be called Jesus, and he will be the son of God. While Mary is heavily pregnant, she and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem (about 70 miles). You’ve got to admire her. For most of us in the later stages of pregnancy, just getting up a flight of stairs is something of a triumph. Anyway, back to the story.
Mary and Joseph make this long journey because the Roman Emperor Augustus orders everyone to return to the town where their families originally come from, to take part in a census. He does this because he wants a list of all the people in his empire to make sure they pay their taxes. (Some things never change!) Although most people are forced to make this journey on foot, some are lucky enough to have a donkey to carry their things. Enter your son in a child’s fancy dress donkey costume.
When Mary and Joseph finally reach Bethlehem, they have problems finding somewhere to stay. All the inns are full and the only place offered to them is a stable with the animals. It’s in this very place that the baby Jesus is born. And his bed – a manger used to hold hay to feed the animals – is where he’s put to sleep.
Following his birth, Jesus receives visits from one of two groups of people, depending on whether you follow the gospel Matthew (who wrote for the Jews) or the gospel Luke, who wrote for non-Jews. In Matthew's account, wise men visit Jesus. After following a star that leads them to Jesus, they present him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In contrast, Luke’s version tells how humble and poor shepherds are led to Jesus by an angel.
The story of Jesus’s birth ends with Joseph fleeing with Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape from Herod, King of Judea. Word has it that Herod intends to kill Jesus because he fears that he will replace him as the new King of the Jews. The irony of this remarkable story is surely not lost on many of us.
