King in a Bathrobe

Well, posting that picture of my firstborn son in his Christmas pageant angel costume yesterday made me nostalgic for the days when we had one of those charming re-enactments of Christ's Nativity to look forward to every year.  Thumbing through the pages of my photo albums afterward (tissue in hand), I came across this snapshot of son #4 playing one of the three kings in his kindergarten class's pageant in 1993.  He's the one in the purple tissue paper crown (a favor that comes in the Christmas crackers we open on Christmas Eve in our house--I must have popped one open early so that he'd have this crown for the pageant).  And he's taking his job of bearing a gift for the Baby Jesus very, very seriously, as you can see.

The other two wise men are wearing Burger King crowns, the go-to choice of kindergarten pageant coordinators country-wide, I'll bet.  And they're also wearing robes that belonged to my son's brothers.  For a brief period there, despite their strong aversion to wearing anything resembling a dress, my four oldest boys were into bathrobes.  And I must say, those bathrobes came in mighty handy for making saint costumes to be worn in the yearly parade of 1st- and 2nd-grade saints in the schoolyard around Halloween, and for making shepherd/St. Joseph/king costumes to be worn in the yearly Christmas pageant.

Bathrobes 'R Us, 1992.

Before I sign off, I just want you to note that in the top picture, the two angels on the right are girls (in pretty, frilly white dresses), and the bathrobe-clad shepherd kneeling at the left is a boy.  When roles are assigned for Christmas plays and pageants, that's usually the way it goes.  Unfortunately, that's not the way it went down for my oldest son, the reluctant angel, when he was in kindergarten!