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Thursday, December 13, 2012

With just over a week to go until Amelie's long-awaited stage debut at the nursery Christmas Concert, preparations were suddenly thrown into turmoil yesterday when we were accused of being too religious. Which is a bit like calling the Pope too secular, and prompted me to take the Lord's name in vain.

Having received the nursery's instructions a fortnight ago, and considered there vague theme of 'Winter Wonderland', we checked out the full range of Easter Bunny costumes, before eventually settling on this angel outfit from Marks & Spencer, which not only makes Amelie look pretty, but successfully masks her demonic tendencies with a halo. Lisa picked it up last week, and Amelie loves it.

Unfortunately, having been to nursery on Tuesday, Amelie suddenly announced to us on Wednesday morning that one of the teachers had told her that she couldn't go as an angel because it doesn't fit in with the theme. Apparently it has to be a winter creature not a Bible character.

Naturally, as an agnostic church non-attender, I was outraged, and felt tempted to send her in on a donkey, dressed as the Virgin Mary, and holding a couple of crucifixes. But we decided to investigate first. In a way, the news made perfect sense, as the Baby Jesus has been conspicuous by his absence from Amelie's Christmas songs, and the nursery staff seem to have gone out of their way to choose festive tunes with no mention of God, stars, wise men or shepherds. Frankly they've succeeded where Herod failed. But we couldn't quite believe that her angel costume had been banned. Amelie's capable of offending people in numerous different ways, but wearing wings isn't generally one of them.

So Lisa went in and spoke to them yesterday. They're denying that angels are outlawed, and trying to pin the comments on one of the children, but Amelie was insistent it was a teacher who'd said it, so we may never know the whole truth. They did, however, say that the other children are dressing as winter animals. So I presume she'll be the only angel in a room full of penguins.

The important thing is that we've kept Amelie's Christian values intact, and stood up for her God-given right to lord it over a bunch of polar bears by flapping about with a halo. It's an important part of her upbringing. And to prove the effect, Lisa asked her this morning "Do you know what Christmas Day is?"

She replied "So much fun?"

That's religious devotion for you.

3 comments:

Jon the Bassist said...

Could you not tell them she is a small winged butterfly with a smoke haze fascinator? 

Phil's Mum said...

I'm still pinning my hopes on a proper Catholic Christmas next year!

A Passer-By said...

Amelie's rely to Lisa is not surprising, as that's the words of the song she has learned at Nursery;  see November 8th and the song Rummy Tummy Tum.!