Last Sunday, my church held their children’s Christmas program. The kids did a great job, and everyone had a good time.
Afterward, I started to think about this yearly phenomena known as the “Christmas Program” and how we go about putting it on.
I’m not sure how your church does its Christmas program, but we buy pre-packaged plays that come with music that our children can sing along with. These CD’s also include a recording for the speaking part of the play, which in my day was used for lip-synching the whole play.
Yes, that’s right: all of the speaking parts and the solos were lip-synched!
In fact, as a pastor’s kid and one of the oldest kids in children’s church, I had a starring role for years, which included one or two lip-synch solos. I’m pretty sure that a few of our older, more trusting ladies think that I really can sing!
Of course, it wasn’t all lip-synch: the choir really sang the songs. Yet, we still weren’t sure they could pull it off on their own, so we used the split-track CD voices in the background to help round-out the performance. This was how we did Christmas programs for over 14 years! Fortunately, we have since scrounged up enough microphones, talent, and courage to let the children use their real voices, and the performances have only improved.
What about your church?
Do you have a Christmas program?
Do you write your own programs, follow a traditional or liturgy-based program, or do you buy the pre-packaged programs?
What obstacles do you face technologically (sound, sets, lights) in producing your program?
[Image via Berkeley Unified School District]
April says
Our kids do a program every year, but we pretty much let them do it on their own. One year, I took a purchased play and added music to it. It seemed to go over well, but you can never really tell with those things. LOL
Phil Schneider says
The kids do it on their own? How old are they? That’s awesome. When you say you “added” music, did you write it yourself? Or did you create your own soundtrack?