The Christmas Pageant Goat
A small rural church was staging its annual Christmas Eve nativity play, and the director decided that this year's production needed absolute realism, so she hired a live farm goat to stand in the wooden manger alongside the children playing Mary and Joseph. Right in the middle of the silent night scene, while the youth choir was softly singing in the balcony, the goat broke free from its rope, trotted up to the wooden altar, and ate the entire paper scroll containing the pastor's twenty-page Christmas sermon. The congregation held its breath as the pastor slowly walked up to the podium, looked down at the empty wooden stand, and then looked at the goat chewing peacefully on the final page. The pastor turned to the crowd, smiled brightly, and announced, "Brethren, we have just witnessed a Christmas miracle—that goat was sent by heaven to ensure you all make it home in time for dinner."
The Fallen Angel Harness
During a mega-church Christmas spectacle, seven-year-old Timmy was chosen to play the Archangel Gabriel and was suspended twenty feet in the air by a motorized winch harness to fly over the congregation during the opening hymn. Right as he reached the center of the auditorium and began shouting his line, "Fear not, for I bring you tidings of great joy," the winch gear jammed with a loud metallic screech, leaving him dangling upside down over row 12. Instead of panicking, Timmy looked down at the startled congregation, waved his plastic gold trumpet, and yelled into his microphone, "And fear not, because if this rope snaps, I'm going to drop right into the choir section!"
The Overly Dramatic Shepherd
In a Sunday school nativity play, an eight-year-old boy playing a shepherd was instructed by his teacher to look surprised when the angel appeared in the field. Taking his acting role far too seriously, when the lights flashed and the angel walked out, the boy threw his wooden crook into the front row, dropped to his knees, rolled across the stage carpet, and let out a dramatic, movie-style scream that rattled the stained-glass windows. The director frantically pulled the curtain shut, but the audience gave the boy a standing ovation, prompting the pastor to say, "I haven't seen that much passion in this sanctuary since the air conditioning broke back in July."