Elizabeth and Mary

One of my favorite stories in the curriculum. First we see Zacharias the priest going into the holy of holies. It's very dark in there (I imagine anyway. It certainly was in the tabernacle!), so we turned off the lights. Suddenly an angel appears! Zacharias is afraid, but the angel says, don't be afraid, your prayers have been answered. Zacharias scratches his head and wonders to himself, which prayer? I pray a lot of prayers! The angel says, your wife is going to have a son. You've got to be kidding, says Zacharias! Is this for real?

The angel is a bit annoyed (I'm definitely taking some license here) and says, I'm God's messenger, I'm standing in the holy of holies, and you accuse me of lying? You want to know if this is for real, then I'll give you a sign: you won't be able to speak your doubts—or anything else!—until your son is born, and you name him John.

Zacharias comes out and people ask him why he's been in there so long. He flaps his arms—there was a bird in there? No, no—he traces a circle on his head—oh, an angel! What did he say? He pantomimes holding a baby. The angel was holding a baby? No, no—he goes and finds his wife, the oldest woman present (60-something, perfect!) and pats her stomach. Oh, she's going to have a baby! Wonderful!

Cut to Mary sitting by herself. The angel appears again, and says, Don't be afraid, you are greatly blessed by God and will have a son. Mary says (again, taking some license), I can't figure out how this could be since I'm not married yet, but if you say so, it must be true! The angel says, you haven't asked for a sign, but I will give you one. Your relative Elizabeth is also going to have a son in her old age. She is already six months pregnant.

The angel leaves and Mary decides to go visit Elizabeth. She knocks on a door and out comes the pregnant Elizabeth!

Her pillow is showing, but everyone got the point and loved it!

When she hears Mary's voice, the baby jumps in her womb. Soon Elizabeth's time comes to disappear into the bedroom & come back out minus pillow but holding a baby. Everyone congratulates her & someone asks, are you going to call him Zacharias junior? Zacharias gets up, gestures No, no, and gets pen & paper, and writes "His name is John." As soon as he finished writing, he could speak again, and praises God.

For our game, we imitated the unborn John the Baptist and "jumped for joy" over a length of string held at higher and higher levels.

Craft time, also a favorite, was folding paper angel bodies, but then attaching prepared photos of each person's head, and pasting on a halo. Since no one takes their crafts home anyway, we then stuck all the angels on a Christmas tree on the wall.

One of our girls put her head on a bit too low, making her angel a bit hunchbacked looking. Later on she asked if she could take her angel off the tree. Why? Because her neck was starting to get sore! She was really worried that she had caused this by placing her angel head wrong! But I said I could fix her neck and "kissed it better." She seemed okay after that!