Friday 19 November 2010

Shepherd no. 1

Christmas play season approaches... 

In Joel's class they've been learning songs for their Christmas play since they went back to school after half term, so it's not surprising that a small slip of paper came home with Joel this week.

On this small piece of paper were the four short lines that Joel (aka Shepherd no. 1) has to learn for the play.  This shouldn't be a problem for the boy who could tell you how long any given person from pretty much any series of Total Wipeout took to complete the Qualifier (Knock out Chris? Well, that would be 1 minute 10...)  Memory is one of Joel's strong suits.

The only slightly disconcerting element was found in the final sentence, asking me to provide a costume for the Shepherd, which needs to be in school by the end of the month.

How do you dress a Shepherd??  Last year I think I had it very easy actually, as Joel was a narrator - and just had to wear uniform.  I know the classic nativity shepherd attire would be a dressing gown, probably with tea-towel head gear; but Joel doesn't even have a dressing gown (I know - such neglect...  Well actually, he's always boiling - so he'd never wear one anyway.)  I'm not sure he's going to go for the whole tea-towel thing either.  Joel's never really liked dressing up anyway...

So - any ideas?  Particularly ideas that don't involve sewing prowess. 

All I need now is for Nathan's nursery play to also need a costume of even greater difficulty - like being the donkey!  There is no job in the world that requires as complex a skill mix as Motherhood.

3 comments:

  1. Donkeys are fairly easy. Brown jumper/long-sleeved top, brown trousers (or go for grey or black) and a donkey mask, plus tail if you feel like it. Sadly, I think a tea-towel is mandatory for a shepherd.

    Actually, I like dressing up, so I don't think it's sad at all.

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  2. How about this. A piece of material (dyed if necessary) brown with a hole in the middle and a piece of cord for a belt. Over his school trousers. With a brown (or whatever colour you choose for the tunic) tee shirt underneath. then another piece of material, similar colour in tee towel mode.

    That's what we used once for Christmas play. you shouldn't need to sew anything. Could even cut up an old sheet and use wonda web for seams.


    Helen P. x

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  3. Ok so in the good old days (ie when we were young!) our mothers could all knock up a Royal-Ballet-worthy fairy tutu and angel wand while simultaneously knitting a scale model of the Eiffel Tower and cooking Sunday lunch for 20......(my own mother did in fact re-cover an entire three piece suite 24 hours before our wedding because "people will be coming round the day after the wedding and i want it to look nice....and planned most of the wedding too, and made the bridesmaids dresses) but I don't have those skills (YET!!).

    I also have to find a shepherd (and a snowflake?) and I will be looking at the wide selection of affordable nativity outfits from Messrs Tesco and Asda..................and if that fails, I'll ask my mum!!

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