Go,Go,Go Joseph

One of the most familiar Christmas traditions is little children performing a nativity. The kids look cute in their costumes mostly made from towels whilst their parents sit on plastic chairs being either bored or tearful depending on their personality. Teachers work extremely hard to put it all together and one of their biggest challenges is trying to give all the children roles in a show where there are at best about ten human parts to play. 

It's for this reason that modern nativities often have a range of obscure animals turning up to witness the birth of Jesus Christ. I suppose that just because the bible does mention some lobsters being present in the stable does not mean there weren't any. One of the most obvious choices to fill roles is sheep. The shepherds famously watched their flocks by night and the word 'flocks' is a useful to those casting a nativity as it allows many of the children to be present on stage covered in cotton wool and occasionally making 'baa' noises. 

When the casting was being announced for my school nativity it was the role of sheep which I coveted. I liked sheep and figured it was a fairly straight forward part to play. I remember sitting in a room as lists of names were read out and being disappointed when the sheep list came to an end without my name being on it. Still there were other animals and I could be a decent horse or cow if required. 

I started to feel uneasy when I realised there were few of us left in the room. The animals had been sent to one room, the narrators to another and there were now a handful of us left. I assumed I must have been forgotten or that I wasn't required for the production. But no! I was to be Joseph.

Inexplicably, Joseph was a small role in this nativity. There were no lines but I had to walk with Mary all the way through the aisle of parents in the school hall onto the stage and take a position behind the manger whilst the narrators narrated and the singers sung. Small it may have been but I was at the centre of the stage for the majority of the show. 

So what does your role in the nativity say about you? Well, I can see why I was cast as Joseph. All the most academic students were given the roles of narrators and that clearly wasn't me. But I was probably one of the best behaved students and was a reliable five year old to be able to walk through the parents and be at the centre of the stage. I think this is much the same opinion as people have of me now. I may not be the best person around but people can rely on me to be where I'm supposed to be and do what I am supposed to do. 

There's also a comparison to Joseph himself to be made. I guess Joseph can be said to be perhaps the reliable guy in the nativity story. He's a poor carpenter who doesn't really even need to be there but there he is, looking after Mary. I also consider him ridiculously complaint from an atheist perspective. If I assume there is some truth in the story, the implication is that Mary had an affair and got pregnant. Did Joseph really have an angel visit him or did he say that to go along with Mary's clever story because he loved her? 

Whilst comparing myself to a biblical figure may be a little crass, I do feel an affinity with Joseph. There's the reliability thing again, being basically useless but nice to have around. I feel like I can be too compliant for my own good too, so often saying yes to things because I don't want to upset the apple cart despite how I really don't want to do them. 

So there you go, some pointless discussion vaguely related to Christmas, much like most of the Christmas specials on TV. I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and I shall be back for one final post of 2018 next weekend!