Need help with Christmas play script

[Blessed_Mommy]

I want to do a Christmas play with our children's church. I would like to do something entitled "Happy Birthday, Jesus". I need ideas for a plot... any ideas?

 

[RolandCheney]

Good simple plots can be fun. Some real basic ones are;
-getting from here to there; and getting lost along the way and finding the real meaning of Jesus' birth in an unexpected way.
-finding something that was lost; like a special cake recipe, or the money to get a cake or party item, or finding the party item.
-friends fall out and finally make up.
Always make the viewer believe (falsely) that the scene is heading in an obvious and predictable direction, then take it in a different and unexpected direction, like because of unexpected set-backs.
Let me see...okay, how's something like this?
Your church wants to do Jesus' birthday, and someone says let's go buy some props, life-size cardboard cut-outs of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the three wisemen, and some barnyard animals. You pretend to call a church supply store, and ask about props. Yes they have props. A price is quoted, and the props are on sale! Some donations are collected, and you have enough! So a church supply store is pretend-visited, and you discover the salesperson made a mistake over the phone, and the price is 'per prop', not for the whole collection. Plus, the special sale price does not apply to the props. So home you go, dejected. (this is mis-direction; setting up the viewer to expect one thing, then throwing them off-balance. Always do this).
Now what? Glum looks all around. It's hopeless!
Okay, maybe the kids can become human mannikins, and become living props, says someone. Great idea!
Next you need costumes. More donations, this time borrowed or given clothes. Plus sequins, colored craft items. Costumes are created. Fairness dictates everyone's costume has to look equally nice.
Someone suggests a demon costume, but nobody wants to play the demon, and nobody wants a demon dancing around in the background.
You need a few tree props too.
Someone suggests what a great witnessing opportunity it would be to do it outside so strangers can see the human props around the baby Jesus, and invited to come in for treats. Fantastic!
The night of the play (now it's a 'play about a play'), everyone shows up, and the air outside is freezing, and the costumes are not warm at all. Nobody wants to stand motionless outside. Now what?
Okay, so maybe let's take it inside, and put up a homemade sign outside with lights on it to draw people in for the 'witnessing' part. Quick, let's make a sign! Out come the watercolors or fingerpaint bottles, and the smallest kids have a ball fingerpainting the new sign on a big roll of white paper. Fantastic! Now we're ready to put it up outside. Out we go! (pretend to go outside).
But now it's suddenly really windy and the sign is just flimsy paper. Got to go back inside and do something! Quickly some big pieces of cardboard are found, and some makeshift wheat paste glue gets the paper stuck to the cardboard, and it is tacked to a few sticks.
Almost time to begin. An imaginary audience of people are showing up (you look down an empty hallway and pretend to greet or notice nonexistent people arriving). Ooh. Lots of people. We better make it good!
The cookie treats taste awful; too many cooks; someone got mixed up and used a jar of salt thinking it was a jar of sugar. Got to throw them all away! Now what?
Old Mrs. So-and-so shows up, that isn't so popular, with tons of homemade cookies that are plain-looking sugar cookies. (real cookies or cardboard cut-outs). They taste great and the treats will go on after all, and everybody likes the old lady and she is so happy now.
Suddenly the minister says the artificial tree isn't fire retardant, and is a fire hazard and can't be used indoors. Someone left out for being too tall gets to becorated and stand motionless and become a human tree with an angel figurine on top (or a cross)! Another happy participant.
The play starts--indoors, warm and cozy. Joseph and Mary bowed over the manger. Three wise men show up. The fancy lines everyone was supposed to speak are missing, and nobody can remember what they were supposed to speak. Someone grabs a stack of Holy Bibles ('pew Bibles'), and everyone starts ad-libbing from Scriptures. The audience loves the authenticity, and think it's so cute seeing Bible characters reading from real Bibles (and trying to hide them from view while peeking at them at the same time). Someone just whispers it's not that hard to do the birth of Jesus anyways, everyone knows the story.
The angels arrive and tell the shepherds watching over cardboard fingerpainted sheep about the birth of Jesus.
The stage narrator announces to the imaginary audience, 'Happy Birthday Jesus'.
Someone says, "That was fun!" and someone else says, "That was easy; let's do it again next year!"