A Mixed Up Christmas

By Sue and the Kaos Kids

Opens with “Raiders of the Lost Ark” theme.

An archaeologist digging, pulls out a Santa Christmas ornament from the rubble.

Lara: Here it is again another fat man in a red suit. This ancient civilisation seems to have worshipped this fat guy as some kind of God.

Presses Santa’s belly and he plays a medley of non-religious Christmas carols – Jingle Bells, Rudolph and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

Erica: And here’s another one of those trees decorated with brightly coloured balls.

Lara: Before global warming shut this planet down they used to worship a fat man called Santa who was crucified on a cross.

Annie: Historians say they left out food offerings to this Santa one night a year. Milk and cookies for him and carrots for his reindeers which were some kind of extinct animals he used to pull his chariot.

Olivia: What happened to him?

Rose: He got crucified by the climate police. He was held responsible for destroying the earth by encouraging people to go on a big spending binge every Christmas when they all went out and bought each other socks, undies and boxed set DVDs that nobody really needed. It was terribly cruel how they killed him; they nailed him to a cross.

Katherine: And here’s another one of those big screen televisions. They’re everywhere. You know it’s thought these things were really responsible for the death of this planet.

Lucy: Yeah, they used so much power they made the whole planet warm up until it got so hot humans couldn’t live here. One year a leader called Emperor Rudd gave away billions of dollars to his people and they all spent it on these plasma screens. The earth’s temperature rose five degrees the next year.

Annie: Guys I think I’ve found something here, I can’t get my spade in any further. Come and help me.

They dig up St Margaret’s Church.

Olivia: It says this place is a church; maybe this will help us understand the religion surrounding this Father Christmas guy.

Katherine: There’s an old church newsletter here from three thousand years ago. It says in the year 2008 Harvey Smith was the minister and the church travel group had made some pilgrimage to a place called the Snowy Mountains. That must have been before global warming melted the polar ice caps!

Lucy: They were going to stage a kids Christmas play on December 14, it says.

Annie: Hey, look, they’ve got a giant cross up the front here. That must have been where they nailed the fat guy.

Rose: Look there’s a book up here on a stand, it’s called a Bible. Maybe that might help us understand Father Christmas religion.

Lara picks up the bible and looks through it.

Lara: Nothing about a fat guy in a red suit in this book.

Katherine takes the Bible from Lara and looks through it.

Katherine: There’s a lot here about a baby called Jesus who has some sort of magical powers.

Erica pulls a DVD case out of the rubble.

Erica: Hey, look what I’ve found! Its one of those round discs that plays on those old big screen televisions. A DVD I think they used to call it. Let’s try and play it.

They plug the DVD into the big screen TV and up comes the title ‘St Margaret’s Kids Christmas Play 2008’.

Begins with Mary sitting in her house with the angel Gabriel standing opposite her.

Gabriel: Mary, God has sent me to tell you that you are pregnant with his child.

Mary: I’m pregnant with God’s child?

Gabriel: Yes Mary. Everything’s going to be alright.

Gabriel leaves. Joseph runs in.

Mary: Joseph, I’m pregnant!

Joseph: What?!

Mary: God sent an angel, Gabriel, to tell me that I am pregnant with his child.

They arrive at an inn. Joseph knocks on the door. Inn keeper opens the door.

Joseph: Do you have any rooms?

Innkeeper: I’m sorry sir, we’re full. Everybody has come back for the census.

Joseph: But my wife is having a baby.

Innkeeper: I have a stable out the back that you could use. I’ll just go and grab some blankets for you.

Joseph: Thank you.

Mary and Joseph go out to the stable. The Christmas star appears over the stable.

Gabriel appears with the shepherds.

Gabriel: Tonight a child has been born in a stable in Bethlehem. He is God’s son; you should go and worship him. Follow the star which marks the spot where you will find him.

Shepherds start walking towards the inn. The walk into the stable where Mary is holding baby Jesus and the three wise men are standing

Sing “While Shepherds Watched” as shepherds leave.

Sing “We Three Kings” as three wise men enter.

Wise man 1: I offer him the gift of gold.

Wise man 2: I offer him the gift of myrrh.

Wise man 3: And I offer him the gift of frankincense.

Gabriel: God would like you to call the baby Jesus. He wants you and Joseph to raise him.

Sing “Away in a Manger”.

Lucy: Lovely music but what’s that got to do with the guy in the red suit?

A woman appears out of the church ruins.

Hermit Charlotte: You’ve got it all wrong. The story of Christmas has nothing to do with a fat man in a red suit. I’m the great, great5, great granddaughter of Margaret Hunt the Sunday school teacher here at St Margaret’s. My family has been tending this church since global warming wrecked the planet. If you want to know the real story of Christmas I can help you.

All: Yes, please tell us!

Hermit Charlotte: It’s about the birth of the Son of God, a man called Jesus who told us to love one another, to treat other people only as they would like to be treated themselves, to forgive those who did bad things to them.

Olivia: So how did we all come to forget about him?

Hermit Charlotte: People became too busy to go to Church. They forgot about the true meaning of Christmas and instead spent all their time buying presents for each other and arranging great Christmas feasts and parties. The year before the great global warming crisis, Christmas shopping season began in July!

Erica: So it was all the fault of this Santa Claus guy?

Hermit Charlotte: No, he was actually a good man, Saint Nicholas, who acted out the message of Jesus by secretly giving gifts to the poor. But he wasn’t crucified on the cross, that was Jesus.

Lara: The people of Earth were forced to flee the planet when it got too hot, and now all live in giant spaceships, but it seems when they left the planet they had destroyed, they left behind God as well.

Hermit Charlotte: God has never left them behind, take me to these people and let me bring them the good news.

Sing to the tune of “Away in a Manger”

Away in a spaceship, no Earth to live on

We lost the True Message of Christmas gone past

But now we’ve recovered the story we lost

From a hermit who live in St. Margaret’s Church

Christmas is about Jesus, the Son of our God

Who taught us about the power of love

So while you are shopping and planning your feasts

Remember the reason we celebrate

Everyone gets into spaceship and leaves as “Star Wars” theme plays