All Over the Place: A Christmas Pageant for Buddhists
Issue 24: Christmas in Thailand
For a country with very few Christians, Christmas is surprisingly big in Thailand. When I was there a year ago, the chain hardware store in my town had a wide variety of Christmas decorations for sale by November 1, although it’s worth noting that you’d have a hard time finding religious Christmas decorations, that I only had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off because they were on Saturday and Sunday, and that there were days where it was 90 degrees warmer in Thailand than Wisconsin. (Keep in mind that it was an unusually cold December in Wisconsin, and that while buildings in Wisconsin have heat, many buildings in Thailand do not have air conditioning).
The week before Christmas saw my coworkers and I attend a bizarre holiday staff dinner and hand out candy to kids before school while singing along to Christmas carols played on tinny outdoor speakers. On Christmas I was able to do fun video calls with my family and walk around my neighborhood in a Santa hat and Christmas shirt handing out Wisconsin Wildcards at the restaurants and food stands where I was a regular. And the week after Christmas saw more holiday fun.
In some classes, students had to do retake tests, but in others everyone passed, so I opted to spend those lessons doing something fun and unexpected rather than another standardized lesson about poorly chosen English words (“Mexican food” doesn’t come up a lot in Thailand).
Students in those classes got a peek at the Western holiday spirit through two activities: a class singing of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” where each gift was sung by a few students and I explained the gifts (there are a lot of birds), and a class Christmas pageant, all fit into 50 minutes or less.
Certain things in the nativity storyline had to be adjusted due to my intention to simply share one of our Christmas stories and not proselytize (not to mention Thailand being overwhelmingly Buddhist), and the standard navitity story having several phrases that would need some explaining to students with a shaky grasp of English (“savior” and “pay homage” were not in their lessons, although for some reason the “Baltic Sea Anomaly” was).
And so below is a script that I wrote after I finished doing the pageant with several of my classes, written partly as a guide to those seeking to do a pageant for one of their classes and to remember a very strange but unexpectedly fun holiday experience which I am now happy to share with you.
“A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT FOR INTRODUCTORY ENGLISH CLASSES IN THERAVADA BUDDHIST NATIONS”
By Adam Larson
TEACHER: It is two thousand years ago, in the Middle East, far away from here. It is hot. It is dry. There is sand.
Select a student to be CAESAR and have them stand up.
TEACHER: CAESAR is the Roman Emperor, the Roman king. He wants to know how many people live in his empire, his kingdom, so he said:
CAESAR: Everyone must go to their hometowns.
Gesture for Caesar to sit.
TEACHER: Everyone in the land heard this, including JOSEPH (select student) and MARY (select student). Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, but Joseph was from a town called Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary began to walk to Bethlehem.
Gesture for Mary and Joseph to begin to walk around the room, and select a student along their path to be an ANGEL OF THE LORD.
TEACHER: Along the way, they meet an Angel of the Lord. The Angel said:
ANGEL: Do not be afraid. You are going to have a baby. He will be very important.
Gesture for the Angel to sit.
TEACHER: Mary and Joseph keep walking to Bethlehem.
Select a HOTEL CLERK to stand near the front of the class.
TEACHER: Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem and go to a hotel, and they ask the hotel clerk:
MARY AND JOSEPH: Do you have any room?
TEACHER: And the clerk says:
CLERK: No, I’m sorry.
Gesture for the Clerk to sit down and for Mary and Joseph to walk more. Select a SECOND HOTEL CLERK to stand near the front of the class.
TEACHER: Mary and Joseph walked to another hotel, and they asked the hotel clerk:
MARY AND JOSEPH: Do you have any room?
TEACHER: And the clerk says:
SECOND CLERK: No, I’m sorry.
Gesture for the second clerk to sit down and for Mary and Joseph to walk more. Select a THIRD HOTEL CLERK to stand near the front of the class.
TEACHER: And so Mary and Joseph walked to another hotel, and they asked the hotel clerk:
MARY AND JOSEPH: Do you have any room?
TEACHER: And the clerk says:
THIRD CLERK: No, I’m sorry.
TEACHER: But Mary and Joseph need somewhere to stay, so they said:
MARY AND JOSEPH: The baby is about to be born. We need somewhere to stay.
TEACHER: And the clerk says:
THIRD CLERK: Well, you can stay in the stable.
TEACHER: A stable is like a barn, where they keep animals. So Mary and Joseph went into the stable.
Gesture for Mary and Joseph to move to the central part of the classroom, and place a single chair in the center.
TEACHER: Mary and Joseph could hear the animals in the stable. They could hear the cows...
Gesture for students to moo.
TEACHER: They could hear the chickens...
Gesture for students to cluck.
TEACHER: They could hear cats..
Gesture for students to meow.
TEACHER: They could hear dogs...
Gesture for students to bark.
TEACHER: They could hear pigs...
Gesture for students to oink.
TEACHER: Mary and Joseph found a manger, a place that animals eat from, and they cleaned it, and that is where baby Jesus was born.
Select JESUS and gesture for them to sit in the manger.
TEACHER: Normally, babies cry a lot.
Jesus will probably begin to pretend cry.
TEACHER: But Jesus was special, and he was quiet, and he slept, and Mary and Joseph were very proud of him.
Gesture for Jesus to sleep.
TEACHER: And high above the stable was a bright star shining in the night.
Head over to a side of the classroom.
TEACHER: There were hills near Bethlehem, and in these hills were SHEPHERDS. Shepherds are people that take care of sheep.
Select two SHEPHERDS and have them stand.
TEACHER: You could hear the sheep...
Gesture for students to baa, and select two students to be ANGELS OF THE LORD.
TEACHER: The shepherds were watching their sheep late at night, when they saw angels of the Lord appear. The shepherds were afraid.
Gesture for the shepherds to act scared.
TEACHER: But the angels said, “Do not be afraid.”
ANGELS: Do not be afraid. A baby was born today. He is very important. You should say hello.
TEACHER: And so the shepherds traveled to the stable to say hello to baby Jesus.
Gesture for the shepherds to go to the stable.
TEACHER: And in the stable the shepherds paid homage to the baby Jesus, so they showed respect to baby Jesus.
Walk to the other side of the classroom.
TEACHER: Far far away from this, somewhere east of the stable, maybe in China, or India, or maybe Thailand, there were three WISE MEN [or Wise People, depending on the class].
Select three Wise Men and have them stand.
TEACHER: If you are wise, you are smart. You know a lot of things. And the Wise Men saw the star, shining high up in the sky, and they knew that if they saw a star like that, it meant that an important baby was born, and that they should visit him. So they traveled all the way to Bethlehem.
Gesture for the Wise Men to go to the stable.
TEACHER: When they arrived in Bethlehem, they gave gifts to the baby Jesus. The first Wise Man brought frankincense. Frankincense is expensive, and it smells good.
Gesture for the first Wise Man to give Jesus an imaginary box of frankincense.
TEACHER: The second Wise Man brought myrrh. Myrrh is expensive, and it smells good.
Gesture for the second Wise Man to give Jesus an imaginary box of myrrh.
TEACHER: And the third Wise Man brought gold. We know about gold.
Gesture for the third Wise Man to give Jesus an imaginary box of gold.
TEACHER: And these presents were the first Christmas presents, because this was the first Christmas. Let’s give a hand to everyone in the play.
Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.