Grady Miller | Pastor, Bolton Community Friends Church
There is nothing like starting off a Christmas Program with a good “Knock, Knock Joke”!
“Knock Knock.”
“Who’s There?”
“Yah.”
“Yah-Who?”
“You really are excited about Christmas!”
That’s the way we kicked off our “50 Years of Christmas in the Country” Christmas Program this year. We also introduced our new Joke Wall and so had to include more Christmas jokes to warm up the crowd. I’m sure every church has a program of some sort at Christmas: after all, it is Jesus Christ’s birthday celebration. What made this year special for us is we celebrated 50 years in a row of Christmas programs.
Carol and I started this run of programs in 1974, and it has been unbroken for 50 years. We’ve never cancelled due to weather, and even during the Covid year we had a program. It was just moved from evening to morning with no reception following the program.
Carol and I did not start this tradition; it was already a long-standing tradition before we arrived. We just picked up the “Mantel” and carried it on. There has always been a great support system among the parents and cast to pull off these programs. Carol and I could never do this by ourselves.
Over the years the program has morphed into the one big event of the year at Bolton. I believe we have celebrated the birth of Christ in just about every way and then some (except we have never done a Cantata, and don’t plan to).
This year we pulled songs and scenes from programs from the past: The rich family that ended up in the country and found the real meaning of Christmas. The Angel Gabriel portrayed as a Lone Ranger type. The retelling of a story when a real bad dude outlawed Christmas in a small town called Rattler Canyon. Using these stories we told about Christ’s birth, starting with Luke 1:1-Luke 2:1-20 and Matthew 2:1-13 (with the emphasis that the Magi came about 2 years later). The sanctuary was full of parents, grandparents, relatives, and friends.
Following the program we had a reception, handed out bags of candy (100 bags) to everyone and gave a gift of $5.00 to anyone 18 years and younger. It was a good evening.
Dennis and Nan Allen’s words say it well, so we use them as the closing reprise:
“Well, now it’s time to say goodbye to you and all your kin.
And we wanna thank you folks for kindly dropping in.
Now go and tell what you have seen at this locality.
And share a heaping helping of God’s hospitality.”
1. “Love, that is…” 2. “Spread the Good News…”
ALL. “Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?”
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