CHRISTMAS EVE

CHRISTMAS EVE

Grandmother: Maryte
Mother: Jurate
Father: Kazys
Sister: Elena(5years old)
Brother: Antanas(7years old)

Scene one

Elena and Antanas are in the corner of the stage and talking in whisper.There is a fir tree in the corner of the room.There is a large table in the middle of the stage.It is the living room.

Antanas:-You know Christmas is coming? What about our presents? Have you sent a letter to Father Christmas?

Elena:- Oh yes, I did. And what about you? Have you ever seen Father Christmas coming at night?

Antanas:- You know, let’s wait till midnight and see all the wonders happening at night. I don’t know how Father Christmas can come to the house when the door is locked? I would like to watch him coming into the room and putting his presents near my bed or under the fir- tree.

Elena:-Oh, yes. And I would like to hear our cat talking. Have you ever heard that animals start talking at Christmas night? I would like to talk to our Murka.

Antanas:
-Yes, we could hide and wait till all these wonders start. Let’s hide somewhere after the Christmas Eve. Don’t go to sleep and sit here in the room and watch Father Christmas coming and our pets talking to each other.

Elena:
-Oh yes. Maybe we could see something happening here.

Christmas Eve. The music of “Silent night” is played. Kazys and Antanas are decorating the fir tree. Jurate and Elena are laying the table. Jurate brings some hay.

Elena:
- Mom, what is this hay for?

Jurate answers:
- We are going to draw lots. Who gets the longest straw, will live happily ever after. And who gets a short straw, will have troubles.

Elena asks:
- Mmm… Now I’ll know.

Jurate and Elena spread the hay on the table and cover it with a table-cloth and start putting the dishes on the table. They bring mushrooms, kuchukai, poppy-milk, herring, jelly made with potato flour, salad, fried fish, beans, vegetable, bread and fruit. Kazys and Antanas come to help them.

Antanas says:
- Well… Now that we have decorated the Christmas tree we can sit at the table.

Jurate says:
- No, you can’t! We have to wait for the oldest family member. Now let us lay the table.

Everybody takes a plate for themselves. But Jurate puts another one.

Elena asks:
- What is it for?

Jurate explains:
-For unexpected guest, the additional plate we usually put for a relative who died last year or a stranger. Just think about people who have no home, no family, no food. This is a plate for them.

The doorbell rings. The children shout:
- Grandmother!

Maryte, grandmother comes in and shouts happily.

Maryte
- Hello kids. How are you?

The children answer:
- We are fine.

She takes off her warm coat and joins the family. Everybody hugs and kisses grandmother. They start talking.


Maryte:
-It’s so cold and snowy outside. Always dreaming about white Christmas. I missed you so much! I love Christmas Eve! Do you know that on Christmas Eve, at midnight all the animals talk? But when you hear them, you can’t tell it to other people…

Antanas:
- I will go listen to them… Why can’t I tell about it to other people?

Maryte says:
- If you do that, you’ll die the next morning.

Elena:
- Ah, it’s so scary!

Then she looks at her brother:
- I think we don’t need to do that, because we could tell it to someone…

Maryte ends this scary discussion:
- Ah, how wonderful those twelve dishes look!

Amazed the children ask:
- Grandma, how do you know, that there are twelve dishes on the table?

Maryte says:
- Your mother does it every year, because it’s an old custom. There are twelve dishes because there are twelve months in a year.

Everyone sits at the table.

Elena asks:
- Why are there six plates, not five?

Jurate explains:
- One plate is for a lost spirit or a stranger.

Elena says:
- Oh…

Antanas says:
- Why are there straws under the cloth? We aren’t sheep to eat it.

Maryte explains:
- We need to draw them. Remember: if the straw is long - life will be long, if the straw is short - life will be short. If the straw is curled up – there will be many changes in your life.

At first all family start saying prayers. Then grandmother takes kaledaitis and everybody takes a piece of it from her hands.
Everybody draws a straw, looks at the other straws and then puts them near the plates. Just angry Antanas twisted his straw and threw it under the table.

Surprised Kazys asks him:
- Why did you do that?

Antanas said with tears in his eyes:
- My straw was short and curled up.

Maryte calms him down cleaning his tears up:
- Don’t cry, it’s just a magic, that can never happen and for the curling, the changes could be good too.

The boy calms down, takes the same straw out of the table cloth and puts it on the table like the others.

Then Jurate asks Maryte:
- Do you know more magic?

Maryte answers:
- Yes, I do. But let’s do it after the meal.

The kids want to put food in their plates but father stops them.

Father:
- Wait, you can’t eat now! You must say your prayers first.

Everybody stand up, put their palms together, put their heads down for a few seconds. Then they all sit down.

Antanas asks:
- Can we eat now?

Kazys says:
- Now we can eat. Just remember, you must taste every twelve dishes.

The kids whisper:
- Why?! We don’t want to!

Jurate says:
- You need to do it because that is done for family peaceful life.

Kids again unhappy say:
- Ok, ok…

When everyone had tasted all the twelve dishes.

Grandma says:
- Now we can do some magic. I just need a few things.

Kazys says:
- Like what?

Maryte says:
- A spoon, a bucket of water, two candles and some matches. Kids, can you bring those things?

Happy kids say:
- Wait!


Scene two

The kids leave the room and after a while, Antanas comes with a spoon, a bucket and Elena comes with two candles and the matches. They put everything on the table in front of Maryte. Maryte lights one candle and puts it into the spoon. Then she puts the spoon on the other candle. When the candle burns and there’s only hot wax, Maryte with one strong swing puts it in the water. Then they all wait until the wax becomes hard. When it hardens, Maryte takes it out and looks at its shadow.

Elena asks:
- Why are you not looking at the wax but at its shadow?

Maryte explains it to her:
- When you look at the shadow, you can see the future.

Then everyone looks at the shadow.

Jurate says:
- Oh, look! I see a dishwasher!

Then Kazys says:
- And look, there’s a new car!

Then Antanas says:
- And there’s a computer!

Then Elena says:
- And it’s portable!

Everyone laughs and Maryte says:
- See how many things you have seen! I wish you that everything would come true!


Jurate says:
- Thank you for your magic.The future seems to be nice for our family. But why don’t you look at the shadow?

Maryte says in a laughter:
- Because I don’t need anything. We could just meet more often!

The children say:
- Yes, we want it too.
-
Grandma kisses everybody. Father calls the taxi and she leaves them.

Grandma leaving:
- Leave everything on the table for the souls. They come at night to try your meals.
-
Kazys tells the children:
- Go to your bedroom – it’s very late.

Maryte says:
- Good night. We’ll meet next morning.

The children say:
- Good night!

Elena and Antanas go to their room. Grandma goes home. The parents go to the living room to pack presents.

Scene three

Kazys says:
- Do you think the children will be happy?
-
Jurate says:
- Yes, really happy. They were waiting for the presents very much.

While the parents are packing the presents, in the children’s room, Elena and Antanas are talking about Christmas.

Antanas says:
- Elena, do you know there is no Father Christmas?

Elena says:
- There is!

Antanas says:
- No.

Elena says:
- Prove it.

Antanas says:
- I will.

Elena asks:
- How?

Antanas says:
- Come with me.

Elena asks:
- Where are we going?

Antanas says:
- You’ll see.

The children get out of bed and go to the other room. The parents hear them.

Kazys says:
- Jurate, I think that Antanas told about Father Christmas to Elena.

Jurate says:
- Why do you think so?

Kazys says:
- Listen, they are coming. Let’s hide the presents.

They hide the presents and the children run into the room.

Elena asks:
- Antanas, what did you want to show me?

Antanas says:
- They are packing the presents! Or not...

Jurate says:
- Children, you know Father Christmas brings you presents.

Elena asks:
- What are you doing here?

Jurate says:
- We are sitting and talking.

Kazys says:
- Yes, we are sitting and waiting for Father Christmas.

Elena says:
- Wake me up when he comes.

Kazys says:
- Ok, Elena, but now go to sleep, both of you.

Jurate says:
- And don’t walk barefooted. You don’t want to get ill, do you?

Elena says:
- Ok, mum.

The children go out of the room. The parents hear their voices from the corridor.

Elena says in a happy voice:
- I told you that there is Father Christmas.

Antanas says:
- One day you will understand there is no .

Elena says:
- There is!

Antanas says:
- Forget it.

The parents smile at each other. After a few minutes

Kazys says:
- Do you think they are sleeping?

Jurate says:
- I will go and look.

After a few minutes she comes back.

Kazys asks:
- Are they sleeping?

Jurate answers:
- They are lying in beds.

Kazys asks:
- Did they say anything?

Jurate answers:
- Antanas is almost asleep and Elena asked if Father Christmas has already come.

Kazys says:
- It’s strange, that when we were children we believed in Father Christmas.

Jurate says:
- Yes. But it was fun to listen to stories and believe in magic.

Then they take the presents out of their bags and finish packing them. Jurate packs the last one.

Jurate:
- It’s finally finished.

Kazys says:
- It’s so late. Let’s go to bed.

Jurate says:
- Yes. Presents’ packing takes so much time.

Kazys says:
- But the children will be happy.

Jurate says:
- They really like presents.

Kazys says:
- And Elena likes when Father Christmas packs them so well.


Scene four

Kazys smiles. Jurate smiles too. They go to sleep and the children are sleeping in their room dreaming beautiful Christmas dreams. In the morning mum wakes up first. She goes to the kitchen to make Christmas breakfast. When she makes the meal she brings the dishes to the living room. Then Jurate hears sounds in the corridor. When she goes out of the room, she sees Elena. Jurate closes the door.

Jurate asks Elena:
- Why aren’t you sleeping? It’s so early.

Elena answers:
- I want to see my presents.

Elena slips away and tries to open the doors of the living room, but Jurate is holding the handle.

Elena asks:
- Mum, why don’t you let me in ?

Jurate answers:
- Elena, wait for everybody to come.

Elena says in a disappointed voice:
- Ok.

Elena goes to her room. Jurate locks the door and goes to her room too. After a minute Elena goes out of her room and goes to the living room, but sees that the door is locked.

Elena shouts:
- Mum!

Jurate goes out of her room. Jurate asks:
- What?

Elena asks:
- Why did you lock the door?

Jurate says:
- You said you wouldn’t go there.

Elena said:
- I just wanted to have a look.

Jurate says:
- It’ll be a surprise.

Elena says:
- Ok.

Elena goes to her room. She goes to bed and falls asleep. After some time Antanas and Kazys wake up. When Elena wakes up, she finds her family awake.

Elena asks:
- Can we go unpack our presents now?

Kazys asks:
- Maybe we should eat breakfast first and then we could look at our presents.

The children shout:
- No!

Kazys asks:
- Don’t you want to eat?

Antanas says:
- Yes, but we want to see our presents first.

Jurate says:
- Ok. You can go and maybe you will find your presents there.

The children go to the living- room to the fir- tree and the parents go after them. Elena unpacks her present.

Elena:
- Mum, dad, look! I got a teddybear! It’s so big and pretty… I’ll call it Teddy.

Antanas unpacks his present and finds an airplane.

Antanas says:
- Look what I got! Cool! I wanted this!

Kazys says:
- Now that you’ve unpacked your presents, we can go and have our breakfast.

Everyone goes to eat. Elena puts a big spoon of salad in her plate.

Elena:
- Why didn’t you wake me up when Father Christmas came?

Antanas says:
- Because there is no Father Christmas.

Elena shouts:
- There is!

Mother:
- Children! We were out of the room and when we came back, there were presents under the fir tree.

The children fall in silence. It is so silent, you could hear the clock ticking in the room.

Antanas:
- Elena.

Elena asks:
- What?


Antanas says:
- Let’s try who will eat a piece of cake first.

Elena says:
- Ok. I will win.

Antanas says:
- We’ll see.

They start eating the cake. Antanas wins.

Antanas:
- See? I’ve eaten it first.

Elena says:
- I didn’t want to eat first.

Antanas says:
- You wanted to.

Elena says:
- No, I didn’t. And you ate the cake first because you’re older than me...

Antanas says:
- Yes.

Elena says:

-… and fatter.

Elena laughs.

Antanas :
- You are fat too.

Elena:
- No, I am not fat. You are the fattest kid in the world.


Kazys says:
- Children, stop arguing.

The children fall in silence. Everyone is eating. Christmas music is playing again : Shaking Stevens ,,Snow is falling all around me…”

Some explanation
We have chosen Christmas Eve, because it is the most important festival for every Lithuanian family and of course Christmas was in the air at the time of writing this first play.

The group of students who created this play. Everybody tried to make their best in creating it.

Kaunas Radvilenai secondary school group of pupils from 5th to 8th grades:
Gabija Vaitkeviciute, Antanas Puzas, Gintare Mickeviciute, Otilija Pajaujyte, Saule Ratkute, Ieva Karaliute, Patricija Valeviciute, Aida Darbutaite, Klaudija Visockyte, Akvile Gudaityte, Beatrice Indriunaite, Goda Barilaite, Meda Pikunaite, Monika Plytnikaite, Urte Puzaite, Gabija Ulinskaite, Agne Keleciute, Akvile Cerkauskaite, Aiste Krasauskaite.

Kaunas Radvilenai secondary school