Christmas Cantatas Where Someone Dies
Sometime around September fundamentalists dig out the big plastic trunks of sheet music and set to work on one of the largest outreach events of the year: The Annual Christmas Cantata.
Unlike the Christmas pageants at other churches, wassailing and gay apparel are shunned in lieu of a much grander tradition — if the evening is to be deemed a success, someone in the cantata’s plot has to die.
Maybe it will be a father who dies at the beginning of the story. Perhaps it will be a nice old lady who dies in the hospital after sharing her sage wisdom about the true meaning of Christmas. Better yet is the tale of an errant boy who staggers home on Christmas Eve to learn that his mother died while he was away playing the prodigal. The main thing is that there must be death by act three in order to hammer home The Message of the cantata.
The rest of the world may consider this a season to be jolly but fundamentalists know to keep the tissues handy when going to the annual cantata.
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
A Tear-Jerking Death Scene is Just the Thing.
Posted by Darrell
I wouldn’t use the words “The Message” in your second to last paragraph.
It reeks of Eugene Petersen and might lead an unbeliever to assume that you read and Unauthorized (per)Version.
This is so retarded. As if fundies have a corner on the cantata market.
FTR, our church does what it has been doing forever: a medley of carols which we sing at local nursing homes while passing out large print tracts. Look it up. t r a c t s
They are useful tools in something we call E V A N G E L I S M.
Some of these cantatas are written by…
RON HAMILTON!
hahahahaha!
Three years running of the Ron Hamilton Death plays!
You nailed and detailed this one!
i had to change my pants after reading this one.
Today I saw a short, wordless skit performed for Easter where a woman wanted to witness to her friend but let her opportunities slip by. She finally got her chance, friend got saved and immediately walked out the door and died. We know this despite the lack of dialogue because main character moved the awkwardly placed, superfluous shrubbery from the middle of the stage to reveal a tombstone with friends name and today’s date. The Casting Crowns song “Here I Go Again” played over the entire tragedy.
It was supposed to be sad, but I was struggling to keep from laughing because I kept thinking about this post and I wondered for a brief second if the tombstone was going to say ” Skit Casualty-Easter 2010″
We usually do the Ron Hamilton- some- one- gets- saved – by- the -end of -the -cantata ones. Our custodian always plays the character who gets saved in Christmas Cantata.
Is he the one in your church who looks like he needs it the most? Does he have a ponytail or an earring or something?
I like the Christmas cantatas where someone eats peanut butter.
A year or two before this article was born, I recorded a skit for my podcast about a preacher who keeps insisting that nobody is going to die in this year’s Christmas cantata. I worried that nobody would get it, but now I see that everybody got it.
This is SOOO funny. My former IFB church does one of these EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Then about every 7 to 10 years, they start the cycle over again. They’ve done the same ones over and over and over. Hasn’t Ron Hamilton written any new ones recently? =)
He probably has, but do they die?
This reminds me of a CCM song that’s played around Christmas that I HATE. It’s called “Christmas Shoes” or something, and it about a little boy whose mom is dying on Christmas Eve and he wants to buy her shoes so that she looks nice when she goes to meet Jesus.
Why would anyone write such a depressing song and why do people want to hear it? Apparently I’m the only one who feels this way, because the local Christian station plays it every hour on the hour during the holidays.
You must live near me. Our station plays it nearly every hour. I asked my mom and sister who work at the station why, and everyone at the station dislikes the song as well, but the listeners love it. I turn the station whenever it comes on, I can’t take it.