Where did the years go? Memories of Glen Alpine Christmas play

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following column by Anna Wilson was originally published on Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023.

A rite of passage in the Wilson household growing up was participation in the Glen Alpine United Methodist Church Christmas play.

For most of us, that meant wearing a choir robe, holding a real candle, and singing “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

(Yes, children with real candles. In fact, my sister Polly set Susan Gaylord’s hair on fire one year. Minor incident. Just a few strands lost to the flames.)

Boys got to dress up as shepherds to sing “Come Softly, Tread Gently” and Wise Men to sing “We Three Kings of Orient Are.”

For one glorious year, I think I was 9, I was chosen to play Mary. The part stretched my acting skills considerably. I had no lines, no marks to hit. Just sit there, staring at the plastic baby doll “dressed” as Jesus lying in a manger pillowed with straw.

Phillip Melton played Joseph. We weren’t even supposed to talk to each other. It takes great skill to sit still for three hours … more like 45 minutes, but it seemed like three hours.

We weathered the shepherds — boys dressed in bathrobes with towels or sheets tied to their heads, then came the Wise Men, and finally, we all sang “Away in a Manger.”

At some point during that Christmas Eve production, I looked down at Jesus and noticed he had a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth. (The baby doll was made to have a bottle inserted in its mouth.)

I casually leaned forward and brushed my hand over the baby’s mouth hoping it looked like the kind of thing a loving mother would do.

The straw didn’t budge.

So, I reached over and pulled the straw. It started coming out. And it kept coming and kept coming and kept coming. That piece of straw had to have been about a yard long.

I got tickled. Phillip got tickled. We sat up in the pulpit trying so hard not to laugh. You know, everything is always funnier when it’s in church. As far as I remember, we held it together until the end of the play.

Over 50 years later, we still laugh about that straw and wonder what kid had the patience to stuff it in that baby doll’s mouth.

I’m sure everyone who was ever associated with that Christmas play has a cute story to tell from their time.

While reminiscing about the play, I couldn’t remember the song the shepherds sang as they made their way down the aisle toward our manger scene.

Craig Melton, Phillip’s twin brother, remembered the first verse which sent me down the rabbit hole of trying to find the rest of the hymn.

“I don’t remember if it was a hymn or not,” he said. “I just remember Sarah Pitts and Sue Isaacs teaching it to us.”

I couldn’t find anyone on the internet singing this children’s hymn, but it’s lovely. Do any of you remember it?

COME SOFTLY, TREAD GENTLY

Come softly, tread gently to see what is there

It’s Mary the Mother with light in her hair

And in that dark stable His bed in a stall

Lies Jesus the Baby so sweet and so small

He’s born in a stable for you and for me

Draw near to the bright glowing starlight to see

In swaddling clothes lying so meek and so mild

And purer than angels this heavenly Child

See Mary and Joseph with love-gleaming eyes

Are gazing upon the crude bed where he lies

The shepherds have gathered, their hearts full of love

While angels sing loud alleluias above

Come softly, tread gently to see what is there

It’s Mary the Mother with lights in her hair

And in that dark stable His bed in a stall

Lies Jesus our Savior, the King of us all

It’s Jesus our Savior, the King of us all.