Wit & Wisdom: The Best Henderson Christmas Play Ever

Angela Henderson-Bentley


    Throughout the early 1980s, the highlight of each Christmas season at Leatherwood Missionary Baptist Church near Coal Grove, Ohio, was the High School Sunday School Class Christmas play directed by my parents, Harold and Lola Henderson.

    Their last production in 1984 told the story of a husband and wife who stop celebrating Christmas due to a personal tragedy, but experience a change of heart after taking in two neighbor kids whose home burned down on Christmas Eve. In his Henderson production debut, my brother Jeff was playing the husband’s Scrooge-like boss, who also experiences a transformation, thanks to the kids.

    On show night, Dad was in in the hallway just off the stage while Mom was in the baptistery, aka the home’s unseen kitchen. As the play entered the home stretch, Jeff’s boss character was about to be invited to Christmas the next day. He would leave, the couple’s kindly aunt and the kids would go to the kitchen, and the husband and wife would be left alone to make a decision to let God and Christmas back into their lives. The end of another great Henderson production and the culmination of weeks of work were in sight. But then, the aunt and kids went off to the kitchen and the play came to a sudden and screeching halt as the actors realized there was a huge problem — Jeff was still on the stage.

    You see, the aunt had two very similar lines: We should go make sandwiches and let’s go make sandwiches. The big difference in the sentences — other than the verb — was the first one occurred about 10 pages before the second. So when the actress playing her got the lines confused, she cut out a huge chunk of the play and left Jeff on the stage with zero exit strategy.

    In the hallway, Dad was frantically turning the pages of his script, trying to figure out what had happened to his play. Jeff was trying hard not to laugh at Dad but couldn’t help himself when Dad gave up and tossed his script in the air. That left the audience wondering why Jeff was laughing when no one was saying anything funny — or anything at all for that matter. Meanwhile, back in the baptistery, it was total mayhem. “I have to ask him about his kids!” one of the actors wailed, forcing Mom to block the door to keep her from running out to the stage. And I was in the audience having my first panic attack at the age of 10, wondering how Jeff was going to get off the stage so this mess could come to an end.

    Maybe there was a little divine intervention that night—it was a church play, after all—because after about two minutes, which felt like two hours, Jeff got an idea. He stood up and said, “I have to go, but could I have an invitation to Christmas tomorrow?” That’s right. He invited himself to the couple’s Christmas. Following his cue, the couple accepted his self-invitation and Jeff quickly left the stage. The husband and wife had their heartfelt talk about God, which finally brought the whole mess to an end—about 20 minutes early. My parents’ final Leatherwood production was a total disaster.

    But afterward, a church member came up to my mom and told her how good the play was. And then another said the same thing and then another. It became pretty clear, pretty quickly that no one had a clue there had been a mistake because the true meaning—a special Christmas message about how God works in our lives — had been so much more important. What I believed to be a total disaster, the audience thought was the best Henderson play ever.

    Now, 34 years later, that play serves as a valuable lesson to me during the holiday season. We run ourselves ragged to make the perfect holiday, but it’s the true meaning — being with family and friends during such a special time — that is so much more important than the perfect gift or meal or decoration.

    This holiday season, I hope you and yours keep the true meaning intact and have your best holiday ever.