Plans for their annual nativity play were well in hand, organized by Toby, the well known local adult baby.
Only desperation had driven the locals to choose him, the truth was that every year their production was always overshadowed by the glitz of the seasonal production of the neighboring town of Ladysville. The county paper awarded a trophy for the best Christmas play, and Ladysville had been perennial winners as long as anyone remembered.
But Toby was determined that this year would be different.
Despite some of the few locals actually defecting to appear in the rival performance, he had amassed a cast of Mary and Joseph, plus a shepherd and a wise man. Only one wise man, actually the shepherd doubling as Caspar, but Farmer Brown had loaned them a real live ox, plus a sheep. Toby's spaniel had to make do as a sheepdog.
Toby himself was to be innkeeper, then with a quick costume change, the angel. His piece de resistance was his entrance on a wire to announce the good tidings.
Folk anticipated this with some relish, since on the first run thru in the village hall, his white angel costume had billowed up, revealing maybe the first ever angel with a nappy.
Then at their dress rehearsal, tragedy struck!
The pulley on which Toby whizzed through the roughly painted night sky snapped, and with a thud, Toby landed in the manger, a fortunate combination of his bulky nappy and Farmer Brown's straw preventing serious damage.
He groaned instead of proclaiming the tidings of great joy to the shepherd. The whole of the little cast gathered round anxiously. It was soon clear that the play was facing catastrophe- another failure for the yokels of Little Boyton! A doctor was called, ignominiously he had to be summoned from his Ladysville clinic.
He arrived to a scene of despair and an undoubted aroma of excrement. It might have been the ox, but some reckoned poor Toby had filled his nappy.
The doctor soon departed muttering something about not treating young men who soiled themselves, making it clear that Toby would need several week's rest. Joseph, who was also the local handyman, declared that the angel wire had snapped, and would need replacing. Not enough time to repair it. The show could not go on.
Lo, suddenly a dazzling bright light illumined the upper reaches of the hall.
'Twas the figure of an angel, dressed in pure white, shiny white wings swaying, wafting a gentle breeze o'er the frilly hems of the silken dress. Open mouthed, the cast gazed at this apparition of loveliness.
The angel hovered sweetly in the air, some six feet above them.
"Fear not," the soft voice of the angel broke the rapt silence, "you shall have your play, if you follow my command! Do you wish me to assist in your play?"
"Of course," blurted out Toby, who was still seated, uncomfortably in the straw. A real angel?! This would be a coup indeed.
The rest of the cast murmured their approval.
"I am the special angel sent to assist the downtrodden," the angel continued, "I will make yours a nativity never to be forgotten, if you agree to allow me carte blanche."
"Carte what?" asked the shepherd, no wise man obviously.
"it means, we must allow this angel to take charge," explained Mary.
"Then we agree," said the shepherd and Joseph in unison, and Toby added his agreement.
A shaking blinding light immediately followed their words, as the angel cried loudly, joined with what seemed to be a heavenly host, singing Glory and Praise!
The humans would have been terrified, except they had no time to think. For each felt their bodies being transformed, not painful, but an utterly unnerving experience.
In a few seconds, their eyes accustomed to the fact that the angel had departed, but leaving behind one startling difference. For they themselves had become clothed in white, pure white, in dresses so frilly they matched that of the angel, who had vanished.
Toby, still seated, was first to speak. His nappy felt clean and dry.
"Mary!" Toby almost shouted, "you've got wings!" Then he added to Joseph, "and so have you!"
"And you!" answered Joseph.
For they saw each of them had been clothed in angel dresses of the most sweetly sissy kind. They examined their amazing new wings which seemed to have sprouted from their shoulders quite naturally.
The wise shepherd jumped in his excitement and amazement, and discovered that he could hold himself suspended in the air, and only come down to the stage floor when he so willed. The others soon found the same, and Toby, no longer in pain, excitedly conversed with his friends over how they could present their nativity on the morrow.
it was while they were deep in discussion that Mary noticed that the ox had also grown little wings, and the sheep, and even Toby's spaniel! However they were not clothed in angel dresses, that obviously would have looked too absurd.
Finally, the cast discovered they were also robed exactly as Toby, for each were wrapped in their own sweet little fresh nappy.
Little Boyton's nativity that year won all the plaudits.
It was different to be sure.
Mary and Joseph floated thru Bethlehem seeking a room, a winged innkeeper in pure white kindly offered them a stable.
A baby floated in, actually Toby wrapped in a silken nappy, and landed softly in a manger.
Then thru the bottom, he crept away to transform into a floating angel, who declared the tidings of great joy to the shepherd.
This same angel hovered around the travelling wise man and led him to the manger, to present his gift to the baby, Toby actually, who had crept back into the manger unseen.
What applause greeted the final curtain!
Little Boyton had won, no doubt, on that score. But the village won in another way too, for thereafter, its inhabitants jealously admired those fortunate cast members with their miraculous angel wings, who evermore dwelled in pure white angel dresses that never soiled.
Nor did their nappies, though nobody, certainly not the angels, could explain how when they happily filled their nappies each day, they only had to will them clean when they so desired, and it was so!
That is the End of my Christmas Tale.
Happy Christmas to all sissies!
