I attended the Christmas pageant at the Brookline Community Church last night and I must say, I was quite pleased with the performance. For one thing, there weren't any casualties this year.

It's a tradition in and of itself - wherever you have small children performing a Christmas pageant, you have a catastrophe of some sort. Usually it's something small, like an angel with their wings tied on upside-down or someone getting nervous and skipping a chunk of the play (like the whole scene with the three wise men), but every so often you have something of America's-Funniest-Home-Videos-proportions.

That happened last year, when one of the young thespians leaned against a piece of the set and literally brought the house down (well, actually, it was a stable) on half the cast. Fortunately, it was a very light piece of scenery, so there were no injuries aside from a few cases of the giggles, but man. Things like that really put the audience in an awkward position, you know?

Here we are, my older younger brother and I, sitting with the video camera and doing our best to be supportive of our younger sibs, when suddenly said sibs are doubled over under a fallen stable wall, expressions of total surprise on their adorable little faces. Do you put the video camera on pause and rush the stage to make sure they're okay? Do you get a piece of consolation candy ready for after the performance? Or do you snicker helplessly into your coat sleeve after, of course, it's been established that everyone's okay?

We laughed so hard we cried. After the performance, both kids got really big hugs from us, once we got them to stand still long enough to hug them - they were still excited about the set falling over. Thankfully, small children bounce back easily.

This year's performance had no such mishaps - the biggest "crisis" was a rather long pause during which the actors made faces and whispered at each other in an attempt to figure out who had the next line. Everyone did a lovely job. My brother was a bull named Eli and he delivered his line about the baby Jesus possibly having gas with great gusto and aplomb. My sister was a sheep named Fluff, and she said her lines about how Jesus might be cold because he didn't have any wool in a loud, clear voice with great enunciation - not the angelic kind, the vocal kind (yes, I know they're spelled differently, but I still think it's funny).

Of course, I'm a proud big sister, so my review might be biased.

After the performance, there were sandwiches, cookies, and a Christmas carol singalong. They divided the room into groups for The 12 Days of Christmas - each section had their own day, and we competed against each other to see who could scream, uh, sing their day the loudest. We were TWO TURTLEDOVES, and we did pretty well for a section that was mostly women and young children, but man, THREE FRENCH HENS was deafening - quite impressive. Nice job, everyone. Hopefully I'll get my voice back soon, and once I do, I'm going to start practicing for next year.