‘You are welcome tonight’

The Christmas Eve congregation at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church on Tuesday evening was indeed full of regulars and those who came less often. But also in attendance were some very special guests: shepherds, angels and kings.

The extra glitz was part of the church’s annual Christmas pageant, played by children from the congregation. Pews were packed front to back, and the church put out extra chairs for the visitors who showed up for the holy day, or to see relatives, as the kids acted out the Nativity story amid the hymns of Christmas. As angels spoke to shepherds of the birth to come, the audience burst into “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

“Please remember, this is a worship service,” admonished the event’s program, perhaps acknowledging the extra visitors.

As a reader narrated about the three kings said to have attended the birth of Jesus, there in the aisle was the Star of Bethlehem herself: a young girl in silver robe from head to toe, carrying a sparkling star aloft on a pole ahead of her. Behind followed the kings, children from the congregation bedecked in their own robes of red or green and fancy turbans.

Just then, the congregation launched into, “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” with soloist Harrison Vandervort carrying the last three verses.

Acknowledging the expanded congregation he was addressing, the church’s senior pastor, the Very Rev. Canon Peter D. Haynes, welcomed them all to the service, which was the first of several that night — though the only pageant.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “You are all warmly welcome to St. Michael’s. No matter where you find yourself in your spiritual journey, you are welcome here tonight.”

Jean Sloane felt welcome. There to see a nephew in the pageant, she said she found the service “lovely.”

“It was just wonderful,” she said. “They’re all so adorable.”