As Michael continued to narrate and the organist played softly, Mary and Joseph, seventh-graders chosen for good behavior, entered from the right and headed for the manger. Mary was leading, rather than riding, a donkey whose sneaker-clad rear feet had an alarming tendency to step on the heels of the snow boots his front feet were wearing. Mary abandoned the donkey once she reached the manger, which was right in front of the altar. As soon as the donkey came to a halt, its stomach began to writhe alarmingly, until Joseph kicked both sets of feet several times and stage-whispered “Cut it out, you idiots!”

While her husband was disciplining the donkey, Mary reached under the manger and matter-of-factly pulled out the doll that represented the infant Jesus and plunked him down in the straw. But then she remembered her character and assumed a beatific expression as she gazed down at the doll.

On this cue, all the animals filed in. In addition to the boys in their dinosaur costumes, the denizens of the stables included a brightly colored parrot, an elephant, a Wookiee, and Winnie-the-Pooh. They all took turns peering down at baby Jesus while the choir led us through all six verses of “Friendly Beasts,” after which the Wookiee chivvied the rest of the creatures to the right side of the stage, where they all took their seats on hay bales placed there for their comfort.

“‘And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.’”

Several comparatively tall boys and girls dressed as shepherds appeared at the far right, herding twenty smaller children dressed as sheep. The sheep milled about restlessly, being shushed occasionally by their keepers or whacked with crooks, while the choir and the congregation sang “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night”—thank goodness only the first verse this time. Then the shepherds herded their charges past the manger and got them settled down on the left side of the stage on more hay bales, except for a couple of small boy sheep who insisted on sitting with my two little dinosaurs.

Michael switched over to the book of Matthew.

“‘Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.’”

The three children chosen to be wise men—or, in this case, two wise men and one wise woman—filed out from the left, carefully holding boxes wrapped in gold paper, presumably containing the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, while we all sang the first verse of “We Three Kings.” I was relieved to see that there weren’t any children in camel suits—especially since the donkey still erupted from time to time with stomach-writhing and alarming sounds of internal conflict and had to be suppressed by Joseph.