My favourite Christmas Story is The Mary story.

I usually sort of hit and miss at Christmas -- it's always a toss up on whether or not it's going to be an awesome Christmas featuring say, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins on cd, and possibly also, nesting boxes featuring painted gold suns that kind of make me inwardly seizure with joy. Or, on the opposite side of the coin, a Christmas that involves me running out of the church in the middle of the candlelight service to vomit all over the back stairs.

Either way, how classy.

There was the Christmas my entire family came down with the flu, so I ate microwaved frozen pizza for dinner and showed our miniature schnauzer Katie all of my awesome gifts from Santa, which were found mysteriously tucked away in a plastic bag beside my parent's bed. Katie was pretty impressed. Seriously.

When I was a kid, being The Mary in the church pageant was the equivalent of being like, Barbie, or a Princess, or possibly the Jem part of Jem and the Holograms. Although -- and I'm not entirely sure here -- Mary probably didn't have magical earrings that turned her into a pink haired pop sensation. It was a truly coveted position that I was bound and determined to one day rock with my fancy bowl cut, and possibly, my Land Before Time unitard and tight ensemble.

But every year, when the time came to choose The Mary, I was turned down. Much like the Miss America runner up, I would turn to the winner and hug her awkwardly, while delicately storing away my rage for things like, Bumper Cars or Cross-stitching.

Until finally, one year, THEY CHOSE ME. I. I WAS THE MARY. I was super excited. I donned a white dress, and I held the creepy Plastic Jesus and I sat with my legs wide open because I don't know how to sit like a lady. In the picture that I can't find (but will find and post here when I get back home) I look vaguely mentally unbalanced, grinning as though the prettiest smile is the biggest smile, cradling that Plastic Jesus like any minute he's going to come to life and say, "You're the best depiction of a Mary I have ever seen in like, 2000 years, Sarah Sovereign."

However, all reigns must come to an end and eventually it was time for me to pass on the Plastic Jesus to someone else.

Only I wasn't ready.

Only, no one could be as awesome a Mary as me. Seriously. I KNEW THIS.

So the next Christmas pageant, in my red dress and my beautiful bowl cut, I ran up to the stage, where last year I had sat so proudly, and tried to wrest the Plastic Jesus out of the new Mary's hands.

Except, I was kneeling over the open vent, and the air coming up blew my red dress up, so that there I was, in a life or death battle over the ownership of the coveted creepy Plastic Jesus... effectively mooning the entire congregation.

Labels: Suitcase of Memories