My favorite Christmas memory was being part of a living nativity scene at Spilman Baptist Church in Kinston, North Carolina. The living nativity of Spilman Baptist Church was epic! Everyone in town rode slowly by and many families filled the church yard to take a closer look. That is what they told us, but to tell you the truth, I was always in the spotlight and could not see the record crowds. You see, every year for as long as I could remember, I was an angel, literally. 

I was an angel next to Mary the mother of Jesus. One year, I remember trying not to laugh as the donkey kept trying to eat my momma’s scarf while my dad swatted his efforts. They tried not to laugh. Eventually, I was promoted to the roof where we crawled precarious ladders to position ourselves as angels who appeared to hover over the lowly manger. When the Halleluiah melody belted out, it was our angelic responsibility to raise our arms for the entire chorus. It felt like an eternity. Our arms ached but we did not dare to let them drop. We took our duty very seriously. Even our Sunday School teachers reminded us that our ministry mattered. And it did! 

I was fortunate to grow up across the street from the church, what I believe to be divine intervention. My best friend and I got to watch the men of the church build the nativity set from the ground up. We watched farmers deliver sheep and a live donkey. I must interject that there was slight disdain on our part because the portrayal of Christ’s birth took up the space where we usually played kickball, but only for two weeks. We were children with limited space for our daily play. I choose to think God understood our childlike innocence. 

We, the children, worked in thirty-minute shifts as angels and shepherds. When our hands felt like they might freeze, we changed places with opposing actors. Just when our hands started to thaw, we were offered hot chocolate and cookies. The chocolate burned our tongues but the marshmallows had to be eaten before they lost their foam. We traded burned tongues for frozen hands for about three hours and loved every minute of it. 

I vividly remember how the wise men rotated bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The shepherds kneeled with their sheep. My big brother wore a bathrobe and headdress. The manger was the spotlight and I remember worshipping in my own childlike way. “And He shall reign forever and ever.” What a privilege it was, at such an impressionable age, to portray one of the angels who witnessed the birth of Jesus.