Christmas Program Oops!

There are dozens of stories of things that have gone wrong in Christmas programs; I’ve been teased for a long time about the night I was reading my own narration of the story of George Albright and said “snowing throwballs” instead of “throwing snowballs”.

My favorite of all time, though, was reading (maybe in Reader’s Digest) about a Sunday School class dressed up and lined up in the hallway ready to go in onto the church platform for their portion of the Sunday School program. Assigned members of the class held construction paper cut-out stars with bright letters in glitter spelling B-E-T-H-L-E-H-E-M S-T-A-R. The teacher cordially made sure everyone was lined up properly and when they received their cue said with a smile “Okay, class, let’s do our best.” The children with their letters turned and followed each other onto the platform in an orderly manner. “How nice!” But when she looked up, having taken her place in the front row to lead them, her heart sank. There in front of her, with a church full of people snickering and chuckling behind her, she saw

B-E-T-H-L-E-H-E-M R-A-T-S