Christmas is such a wonderful time of year. The holiday lights, decorations, festivals, activities, and of course, Christmas Eve Candlelight Services. Growing up, my dad was a pastor of Pentecostal Holiness churches and we did some Christmas activities at the church. We did not do all the things that take place at St. Luke’s during Advent, however in 1998, we made plans to do a large Christmas musical. This musical needed around 50 people to pull it off; children, youth, adults, choir, musicians, and tech team. For our church that was about half of our weekly attendance.
I had the privilege of being the director for musical and my wife, Suzanne, (we were not dating at the time but started dating soon afterwards) was the lead actress. The play was called The Christmas Post which portrayed life in the 1940s. It was as if you took a Norman Rockwell painting of a department store and brought it to life.
The department store was called Herzog’s and the lead character was a widowed woman with two children. She was working at the department store to earn extra money for her kids’ Christmas gifts. One of her children was working at the local newspaper stand to earn money to buy her mom a present. The protagonist was Herzog Jr., the son of the store founder, who was always looking for how to make money. One of the main songs in the musical is called Shopping, Shopping where there is a frenzy in the store as people are trying to get last minute gifts.
Most years as Suzanne and I are in a store, we will break out into this song. It brings back memories of this musical. Of course, the mom and daughter are both able to buy their gifts, the store owner has a change of heart and in true church Christmas musical fashion, the storyline returns to the real reason for the season and the birth of Jesus with a song called Start at the Manger.
Each year, I can get caught up in all of the shopping, shopping during the holidays. I pray that this year, I will make more time daily to start at the manger.
Brent Manning, Director of Communications
