An honest review of my kid’s nativity.

 Warning and potential spoilers – if you want to read a nice yummy mummy account of how amazing and brilliant children are, the joys of Christmas, the wonder of primary (infant) schools or any other jolly and amazing parenting wonderment then this is not the place for you to be… go wrap your small children in bed and watch them breathe, make a Christmas cocoa and spread Christmas joy instead.. don’t say I didn’t warn you if you continue to read…

Despite being able to avoid the curse of the last god knows how many years it’s been of covid I decided to catch it (you know for funsies) the week before my kid’s nativity play. While I am not kidding on this, COVID is horrific and painful and kind of scary (why no one explained this to me I don’t know) I am not going to lie, in between the wanting to die, incredible bone pain, fever dreams, chills and sweats I was a little relieved that I was in no way going to be covid free in time to attend said nativity play….

Of course, I forget people need context to my stories. The small one got cast in the nativity play what seems like a billion years ago. I say this because I had heard about her casting every day since it happened. She was cast as a horse, not in fact an angel or one of the you know mildly important roles but a damn horse. To be honest I could not tell you who was most pissed about this her or me. Bearing in mind I have had to sit through the elder two womb fruit being a Christmas pudding, a ring girl, a black sheep (twice) a white sheep (what a year that was) and a giant poo (don’t ask) a bloody horse seemed about right. Of course, the small decided that despite what the school, me, daddy and Nona told her that horses only come in shades of brown. We have no brown clothes – this is world ending even worse than not being an angel (more on this later). We must go out in December and buy all the brown clothes for one performance that she will never ever wear again.  To be clear despite my protests I do mildly appreciate the smallest person and when she’s sad then I make her dad sad (seems fair?) Pro parenting tip incoming – you cannot buy horse brown clothes in December so if you think your dear darling kid is going to be a horse buy the clothes in advance.

It took 3 out of 4 adults to get her to understand that no one cared what she wore and that horses come in all colours (that’s a whole other bog post). It then took more time than I care to remember to practice her lines. Wait for it…... “neigh neigh neigh” with a weird sweeping motion which I think she made up for effect. So I have already seen her performance before the big day several times over.

COVID decided to abandon me 2 days before the big day. I had a moment with a test and a pink pen that I nearly committed to. But even if you are the second parent,  guilt apparently is still a thing. Okay fine it wasn’t guilt it was knowing that even after 42 years your mum can still and will call you out when you try and pull this type of shit. In the words of the Scooby gang I would totally have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for my pesky mother.

The big day arrived – given that the event was due to start at 2.30 my mother and husband decided that we needed to leave at 2.15 which in normal land seems reasonable but apparently every other parent dropped their kid of at 9 and then just stayed at school until the doors opened. It’s a bloody village with 5 Christmas lights that don’t work attached to lampposts that have been around since lampposts existed – this is not Broadway people – apparently, I am the only awful mother in the village which would explain why I am not winning any awards for parenting at this stage.

 

We get to the end of the queue – which means I must pull out the smiley excited wow I love everything about this experience face and nod and acknowledge schoolteachers who I couldn’t pick out of a line up let alone which one actually teaches my child. Dann knows this is coming he has 22 years’ experience of a Tabs and a good few years’ experience of the regression that occurs when I enter a school setting for any of our children. I just cannot do enforced planned fun; I like to be miserable and complain about everything – it’s why I went into the career I chose (if you know you know)

One of the sick pleasures I enjoy about being dragged to these events with Dann is the fact that watching him sit on a tiny human plastic chair is as funny as the time the garage gave him a KA as a courtesy car. My joy lasted all of 2 minutes when we were sat at the back of the hall and all I could see was heads. There was a program – which I diligently studied because I love to know how long I am going to have to suffer for – 10 songs worth apparently. Dann in his tiny chair clearly having overdosed on the Bublé gave me the Christmas parenting warning about having to enjoy the next hour and if not at least trying to pretend that I was. It’s really hard to take him seriously when he’s all scrunched up with his knees in his face which is why I had to comment on the fact that clearly my child’s class was so untalented that they had to make two sets of angels – those that could sing and those that could not. I mean come on dancing and singing angels? None of them could do both – makes being a horse seem mildly better. Now while I stand by my viewpoint apparently vocalising this when you are sat behind dancing angels mum isn’t the best idea. To be honest her death stare wasn’t that impressive, but Dann saw it between his knees and did the embarrassed on my behalf thing he’s been working on for 22 years.  

The small people came in – everyone and I mean everyone stood up to have a look including my mum and Dann, although I suspect Dann just wanted to uncurl himself. I remained sitting because a) I saw her less than 5 hours ago I didn’t forget what she looked like and b) she came out of me I know what she looks like horse or not. Apparently, this is not the done thing. I have already told you I could not pick out which teacher belongs to my child so when super enthusiastic and possibly the head teacher bounced on the stage and started praising literally everything I was already disoriented. The ahem play started and if I hadn’t already been in the situation where I was recovering from COVID I would almost certainly have caught it during this delight. Seriously there were some benefits to lock-down that meant not having to attend this crap is why it took me so long to catch it in the first place.

Dear reader I am not going to make you suffer the way I did with a long description of a bunch of 5-year-olds boring the pants off me but I will give you the highlights:

-          There was a shrew in the play which I do not remember being any part of any nativity – when I questioned this, I was given side eye

-          If you take mum to anything with any of her grand-babies she will stand up, wave her arms around like one of those wind machine things and weep uncontrollably

-          The horse scene in which NONE of them wore brown lasted an approximate 1 minute in which I couldn’t see anything anyway

-          There really was a reason we had singing and dancing angels

-          I still don’t understand why the sheep put shades on and sang about how cool they were

-          Apparently commenting on the lack of diversity about said angels all being blonde is not a popular opinion or one I should share

-          Neither is pointing out your own belief system about God and Jesus

-          5-year-old children are uncontrollable

-          5 year old children prefer shouting over any type of singing and if I gave my child nothing else I gave her my singing talents.

When it was finally over which ended with a round of what might have been jingle bells but by which point all the small people just resorted to shouting any words they liked we were then issued our children – you know in case we wanted to take photos and heap praise upon them – yes well done best horse ever *sighs* The I think head teacher then announces that we should evacuate to the playground and wait for our children to put their uniform back on (it’s Friday) before they can be released to us. ITS FRIDAY – she is bloody wearing leggings and a t shirt of which when we get home she is going to put back on. But no, I have to wait for her to put her full school uniform on including her tights which will take at least 20 minutes so that we can walk home and let her get changed again. Dann gives me the face, so I don’t say anything but we both know what I am thinking.

This is the first moment when I realise that my mother is in fact a yummy mummy – she is full of zim and pep (really you should have seen her) she bounces into the playground and surrounds herself with her fan club making inane chatter and being all involved and up to date with small people concerns. You know the mum I never had when she came to collect me from school – she’s so freaking cool and down with the mum’s I kind of wanted to slap her and demand why she didn’t use her newfound influence to get the small a better part. I didn’t because no one needs a mum speech in the playground about your failings….

To conclude, I give the whole thing a 1 out of 5 rating – and that was only for the Dann in a tiny chair moment, I am clearly a Grinch who does not understand the importance of this nonsense at this time of year. I have already invited any disease and sickness that would like to visit me for mother’s day so that I do not have to sit through the mother’s day play that is likely to bring me as much joy as this nonsense.

In case you are worried about neglect – here is a picture of the small as a horse with the parent that enjoys this stuff….