Homemade Holy Night

by Ella Ruth Rettig

 Where did I get the idea of a family Christmas pageant? I don’t really know. All I can say is that when the idea came to me, I felt that I might never see a Christmas again.

It was June. I’d just gone through major cancer surgery that hadn’t been fully successful. Once a month I’d travel 250 miles to Houston for chemotherapy, and returning home I felt sick to death.

The days were long. My husband Gene is a telephone repairman, and we live on a hilltop in the farm country of central Texas. It’s beautiful country, but I had no energy to go out in it. I’d just sit by the window and watch our horse loping from the barn to the shade of the mulberry tree. I’d lost my appetite, my hair, but, worst of all, at times I was too sick to care whether or not I got well.

My family tried to bolster my spirits, but I couldn’t seem to focus on anything. Then I tried playing a little game myself. “Get rid of all those gloomy thoughts, Ella Ruth,” I told myself. “Start thinking only good, bright thoughts.” And when I asked myself what was good and bright, I came up with—Christmas, my favorite time of year.

If only, I thought, if only I could feel that every day was leading me nearer to Christmas.

But what could I do? Start my Christmas shopping early? In summer? No, that would be silly. Well, maybe I could plan a special celebration that would bring my family all together. And, of course, it should honor Jesus’ birth. I had read somewhere that cancer patients should set goals—and a Christ-honoring Christmas became one of my goals.

What I really wanted to do was bring the Christmas story to life for my grandchildren. Maybe a Christmas play …

Yes! But how? Where? With what? My mind and body were weak. How could I put a play together?

I prayed, “Father, I want to honor You, but You’ll have to show me how. I don’t even know where to start.”

 Slowly, God got me going. Looking out the window, I saw our barn and thought, There! There’s the manger, Ella Ruth.

I knew what the plot of the play should be—it was right there in Luke.

Then I wondered who in my family could play what parts? Right away I saw that we had a perfect Mary. My daughter Kristi was pregnant, due in February … and her husband Bobby had a beard. He could be Joseph. The angels and shepherds? My grandchildren.

There saw my cast. But what would we do? Stand around in the barn? No. Somehow I would have to come up with a simple script, and so I studied Luke 2 and Christmas books for ideas. And costumes. Did I have the needed strength to make them? I really didn’t want anybody’s help. I wanted this to be a secret between the Lord and me.

“Go slow,” I heard God saying, “and I’ll help you.” I did take it slow. During my long afternoons, I would sit beside our old cedar trunk, rummaging through mementoes of wonderful times.

There was an old jeweled collar … how stylish I’d felt wearing this in the long-ago days when my husband and I were courting. Now the collar could be a Wise Man’s crown. A red and black afghan … here was a labor of love. My daughter Kristi had made this for me just before her marriage. Now it would keep warm a king of the Orient. Old elastic hairbands and old towels—sewn together they’d make headdresses for the shepherds. My house took on new life with all the objects in it calling out to be used.

One day, though, while turning a pillowcase into a shepherd’s dress, I suddenly suffered doubts. Was I setting myself up for a big embarrassment? What if my children and grandchildren thought this was a stupid, silly idea? Would six-year-old Jeremy take one look at his pillowcase and say, “Forget it”?

But the longer I thought, the more sure I was that my family—they were all a bunch of actors anyway—would play along wholeheartedly. So I hoped.

A month before the holiday, I let my husband Gene in on my secret. I needed him to make the “star in the East” and shepherds’ crooks in his workshop. And when we made the drive to Houston for my chemotherapy, the fear and silence were a little less terrible. Gene and I had pageant details to talk about.

Then before I knew it, the holiday was upon us. I arranged to have all of our family gather at our house for Christmas Eve. They suspected something when I told them to wear warm clothes.

All was going well until the day before, when a heavy rain began to fall. Would we be able to get the manger in the barn? I forlornly painted a king’s crown, and looked up now and then to see the rain come pouring down. The morning of Christmas Eve, though, we woke up to a clear sky and a brisk north wind. By noon, the way to the manger was dry.

During Christmas Eve dinner I was a bundle of joyous nerves. I could barely eat. As everyone began the after-dinner cleanup, Gene and I exchanged winks and then he slipped outside to set up the star and arrange things in the barn.

Dishes done, everyone gathered around me, waiting for me to spill my secret. But my doubts were back. Would everyone try to back out? Handing out costumes and printed instructions, I didn’t dare look up to see how everyone was reacting. But then my son Mike quietly said, “Hey, Ma, I haven’t seen you this excited since … in a long time.”

I felt I’d just been given a big dose of bravery. When everyone was dressed, I began to read from Luke 2 and the pageant at last began to unfold. Joseph and Mary (“being great with child”) left the house and I told of their journey to Bethlehem. With no room at the inn, they took refuge in the barn. We then watched from the window as shepherds went out into the field. My daughter-in-law Donna wore an old quilt top and a towel headdress, and her little Jeremy and Kerrie wore old pillowcases.

Then, “the angel of the Lord” (my oldest grandchild) came upon them. Tracy was wrapped in a white bed sheet, with a tinsel halo nestled in her hair. I flipped a light switch and “the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” More angels, Little Kellie (Kerrie’s twin sister) and Stephanie, appeared. The angels brought “good tidings of great joy” to the shepherds, and then they all headed for the manger. I followed, leaving the Wise Men in the house. In the barn everything was dark except for a gentle glow shining on Mary, Joseph, and the Babe (a doll) in swaddling clothes. Angels and shepherds and my husband kneeled or stood in the shadows, silent in the cold night air.

I stood at the door and read the story of the Wise Men from Matthew 2. My husband’s handmade “star in the East,” a flashlight hidden within a cardboard star began moving along its cable toward the barn. The Wise Men (my two sons, Ron and Mike, and our family friend David Taylor) followed the star across the field, singing “We Three Kings of Orient Are.”

And then the Wise Men were with us in their jeweled and (bath) robed splendor, presenting their gifts as the angel sang “Silent Night.” Then the grandchildren sang “Away in a Manger.” We all joined in on “Joy to the World.”

This was all I had planned. But none of us could move. We all felt God’s warm presence in this cold, dark barn.

My oldest son Ron gently broke the stillness, saying, “I feel like we should pray.” Ron led us in a prayer of praise, and we then sang another carol, and then another, all of us wanting to hang on a little longer to this loving closeness.

And in that closeness I no longer felt like the sick one in the family—I simply felt like one of the family. A good loving family. I’d left my fear behind. My soul was full of light, a newborn light that God had been leading me to for six months. It was the radiance of the manger, a radiance I’d helped God create.

So you see, if you’re stricken by illness or misfortune, set some goals. Find something worthwhile to do. And then do it. Make a Christmas pageant or an Easter vigil or organize a bake sale. If you know a trade, offer your services to those in need. To get better, you often have to go out of your way. Don’t be afraid. Go.