I am going to tell you about a wonderful Christmas event that involves lots of children and a donkey called Strawberry.
It started nearly 40 years ago at a church where I was the vicar and very few families came to the Christmas Carol Service. By the beginning of December a brand new and exciting Christmas Christingle service – involving a donkey - was organised and a local paper sent a photographer to accompany me on my first visit to meet Strawberry on her farm. She was a delight to meet; and she had been specially dried out for a couple of days in a stable, then groomed and kitted out with a woven blanket and two enormous paniers. She really did look the ticket for a first-century trot to Bethlehem.
The day came, fortunately not wet or windy, and an area in the church had been set up as a stable with straw on the floor. Our friends rolled up with Strawberry in a horsebox to meet her holy family.
What I couldn‛t have reckoned for was that on meeting Strawberry, the man who was playing Joseph for the night, admitted that he thought he was allergic to donkeys! Immediately he proved the point with five loud sneezes and streaming eyes. But the show had to go on.
And what a show it was. Long before the start time the church was heaving with parents and grandparents with excited children.
The noise and chatter grew louder as did my concerns. What might happen? Would the donkey literally kick off? Might some children be scared being at close quarters with such a beast? I need not have worried; Strawberry was a star. She trotted round the church led by Joseph never once flinching at the many children wanting to get near her. She was patted, she was stroked, she was directed down narrow aisles, she was backed into her stable and not for one moment did she whinny or dig her heels in or toss her head in fear. She was every child‛s idea of what the first Christmas donkey would have been like – a patient beast of burden humbly doing her bit in one of the greatest dramas in history.
Strawberry never missed a single year after that until she retired.
Illustration with kind permission of Alex Merry http://www.alexmerryart.com/