The Christmas story, New Zealand style
December 21, 2010 2:40 PM Subscribe

"And she was like 'oh my gosh I'm going to have the son of God'. And then she was like 'no I can't, I'm not married and stuff.'" The Christmas story, told by Kiwi kids.
posted by embrangled (51 comments total) 37 users marked this as a favorite

Jesus has Two Daddies
posted by melissam at 2:47 PM on December 21, 2010 [13 favorites]

Quite possibly the sweetest thing I've seen all month.
posted by angiep at 2:49 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I agree with Angiep... Despite any cynicism I might have previously held concerning Christmas, it all melted away, at least momentarily, as I watched that video.

The way they did the star was also quite nice.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 2:53 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

The Christmas story, told by Kiwi kids.

Seen it!

I haven't actually seen that. But still...!
posted by Sys Rq at 2:55 PM on December 21, 2010

I believe this is actually a deleted scene from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:56 PM on December 21, 2010 [8 favorites]

I like how they zoomed in on the animal poop during the part about the animal poop just in case we didn't know what animal poop looks like.

Also, those sheep and that star are the most adorable adorables that ever adorabled. (Spoken as a person who does not actually like kids, generally speaking.)
posted by Gator at 2:56 PM on December 21, 2010 [6 favorites]

Yay for indoctrination at a young age.
posted by knz at 2:58 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Before the anti-Christmas pile-on starts, I should add that I actually don't do Christmas myself. But heck, these kids are cute, and like lauratheexplorer, I found my cynicism melting away, just for a moment. It made me smile, is all.
posted by embrangled at 3:04 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Indoctrination? Hardly. At that age, everything is magical to kids. The Age of Reason and Science comes later. Otherwise, they would scrutinize the potential for certain inaccuracies that could easily be determined through basic calculations.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:04 PM on December 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

Hint: everyone knows Santa is a Microsoft man
posted by filthy light thief at 3:05 PM on December 21, 2010

... because Apples are for Reindeer.

BaDING!
posted by filthy light thief at 3:06 PM on December 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Too bad the Joe Frank segment about Joseph's reaction to being cuckolded by God isn't available online anymore. (He always knew Mary was a social climber, but with God?)
posted by kenko at 3:08 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

cute stuff...
posted by HuronBob at 3:19 PM on December 21, 2010

This is the worst Sigur Ros video ever.
posted by Pecinpah at 3:20 PM on December 21, 2010 [7 favorites]

This reminds me of the LOLCat Bible, in the first chapter of Luke, when Mary is informed by the angel Gabriel that she will be carrying the Son of God:

Mary wuz liek "O rly, i iz a virgn remembr?

posted by fuse theorem at 3:24 PM on December 21, 2010

I could also feel my cynicism melting away while watching the video, so I closed it before it could do lasting damage.
posted by Memo at 3:25 PM on December 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

Holy shit, my ovaries...
posted by spec80 at 3:27 PM on December 21, 2010 [11 favorites]

Jesus has Two Daddies

Maury Povich begs to differ
posted by chara at 3:48 PM on December 21, 2010

Also, adorable video! Great post, thanks! The star interpretation and the glowsticks made me squee a bit.
posted by chara at 3:50 PM on December 21, 2010

filthy light thief: "At that age, everything is magical to kids."

In my experience, kids love arguing. I've always seen Christ's "You must make yourself like a little child" to be a call to skepticism.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:13 PM on December 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

Man, Kiwi is the best english accent. The way they say "scared" is awesome.
posted by ghharr at 4:22 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've always seen Christ's "You must make yourself like a little child" to be a call to skepticism.

I see it as a call to video games
posted by Hoopo at 4:33 PM on December 21, 2010 [7 favorites]

Actually, I was thinking, "it's very cute, but it seems to be somewhat inaccurate re-telling". (At that age, the nativity play I directed had all of its text from the gospel of Matthew. I was a bible nerd).
posted by jb at 4:35 PM on December 21, 2010

Is this the appropriate place to point out that MeFi favorite Hyperbole and a Half has a new, somewhat related post today: The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:36 PM on December 21, 2010

I was so ready to snark all over this thing. Snark. Snark. Snark. Open up a big can of snark-ass and go to town. And then I watched it, and...it was really cute. And endearing. And I just couldn't bring myself to snark.

Maybe that's the real meaning of Christmas.

I'm just gonna leave Linus' speech right over here.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:44 PM on December 21, 2010 [4 favorites]

I guess all the previous tellings of the tale left out the "glowstick rave" part, but that whole thing was so damn adorable that I'm just gonna let it slide.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 4:54 PM on December 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

Thank you, embrangled, I needed that.

I've just been Christmas shopping, which delivered a mega-dose of everything I hate about shopping, school holidays, lazy staff, rude customers and traffic-on-Valium, in one fell swoop.

I'm feeling (slightly) less cynical about the season now. I wonder if that star is an orphan who needs adopting...
posted by malibustacey9999 at 5:21 PM on December 21, 2010

I know the glowstick party wanted me to have a glowstick party IMMEDIATELY. Thank you for posting this.
posted by sweetkid at 5:22 PM on December 21, 2010

Great fun, sending now to family members who are into the whole Christmas thing, thx for posting.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:35 PM on December 21, 2010

So cute, I loved the little sheep. I loved them all, this was adorable.

Another cute Christmas story told by kids from Italy: il viaggio di Babbo Natale. Kids are awesome.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:34 PM on December 21, 2010

Mary looks like she could be Maori, for the record.

Ten points for whoever's parent sucked it up and played the donkey.

I bet the sheep and the star are only in it for the glowstick party.
posted by Jilder at 7:09 PM on December 21, 2010

It was the enthusiastic running waving star that did it for me - too cute! I loved when they were standing over everyone at the end and flexing their hands.
posted by booksherpa at 7:29 PM on December 21, 2010

More kids (from Ireland in the 60's) relating religious stories accompanied by animation from Brownbag films: Give up your auld sins
posted by recklessbrother at 7:29 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this. I was kind of neutral until the sheep. They got me with the sheep.

Seems like a good place, also, for the Digital Story of the Nativity which I found kind of clever but wasn't sure was good enough for its own FPP.
posted by Miko at 7:54 PM on December 21, 2010

Also, this video is SO what happens when indie rock fans become parents.
posted by Miko at 7:56 PM on December 21, 2010

It was its own FPP the other day!
posted by Daddy-O at 7:58 PM on December 21, 2010

Oops - and posted by the fine ericb! Glad to hear it.
posted by Miko at 8:06 PM on December 21, 2010

The Maori Jesus

I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees,
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelled of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.
When he broke wind the little fishes trembled.
When he frowned the ground shook.
When he laughed everybody got drunk.

The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the shit out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the rubbish can.
One was a little office clerk
Who'd tried to set fire to the Government Buldings.
Yes, and there were several others;
One was a sad old quean;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish.

The Maori Jesus said, 'Man,
From now on the sun will shine.'

He did no miracles;
He played the guitar sitting on the ground.

The first day he was arrested
For having no lawful means of support.
The second day he was beaten up by the cops
For telling a dee his house was not in order.
The third day he was charged with being a Maori
And given a month in Mt Crawford.
The fourth day he was sent to Porirua
For telling a screw the sun would stop rising.
The fifth day lasted seven years
While he worked in the Asylum laundry
Never out of the steam.
The sixth day he told the head doctor,
'I am the Light in the Void;
I am who I am.'
The seventh day he was lobotomised;
The brain of God was cut in half.

On the eighth day the sun did not rise.
It did not rise the day after.
God was neither alive nor dead.
The darkness of the Void,
Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness
Sat on the earth from then till now.

James Keir Baxter (circa 1966)
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:19 PM on December 21, 2010 [22 favorites]

I suppose it would seem on the surface politically incorrect to make this in New Zealand using only children of the recent colonizers/oppressors as players, but think for a minute about the implications of using Maori children in the various roles - all sorts of distracting subtexts and interpretations come into play. Better really to have an all white cast of kids additionally sorted for cuteness value.

Speaking as a secular Kiwi whose paltry knowledge comes of having walked past the beautiful church these kids came from every time I needed to get bloody anywhere on the Auckland University campus -- it's not clear to my eyes whether the little girl playing Mary is Maori or not, she does look like she might be, but as a New Zealander I didn't see any distracting subtext. St. Paul's in the city has a primarily Pakeha flock as I recall. Considering Maori-Caucasian Christian syncretism she could have been openly wearing a tiki and a facepainted moko and it wouldn't have registered that much, though I'm not saying the tension isn't there. To make a very longwinded story short I'm just saying you'd have to really look for implications.

No, what got to me was the look of major annoyance on the face of the little girl in the sheep costume. Hilarious.
posted by monster truck weekend at 9:17 PM on December 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

I had forgotten that James K Baxter poem, i_am_joe's_spleen. Thanks. I love his stuff.

The vid, though, was a bit cutsey for me. I enjoyed hearing the centralised [I] and the diphthong merger, though. And the Joseph getting embarrassed moment was pretty cool.
posted by lollusc at 12:01 AM on December 22, 2010

"I suppose it would seem on the surface politically incorrect to make this in New Zealand using only children of the recent colonizers/oppressors as players ..."

Seriously, how do you think you can tell?

I grew up and went to school with blonde-haired, green-eyed, pale-skinned children of strong Maori descent, and brown-skinned, brown-eyed kids with a mere smidgen or suspicion of Maori blood. As a born and bred Kiwi, I wouldn't back myself to pick any of those kids as Maori/Pakeha, or dictate how they should identify themselves.
I've known grown men discover late in life that they had a 'secret' Maori grandparent, and watched them come to terms with a new self-identity.

Although my own family are comparatively recent 'oppressors' (into our fourth generation born), I'm always mindful of the possibility of such a revelation myself.
posted by Catch at 3:05 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Great stuff, embrangled, thanks!
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:52 AM on December 22, 2010

...Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness
Sat on the earth from then till now.

James Keir Baxter (circa 1966)

I was so relieved to find that wonderful poem was by (the wonderful) poet James K. Baxter, i_am_joe's_spleen!

For an awful minute I was sure it was going to be another brilliant bit of spontaneous verse from flapjax at midnight - and I'd have to die from envy!
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:04 AM on December 22, 2010

the star, the sheep and the glo-stick party and just full gushy-cutey-win, so let me direct my hatearade towards embrangled. don't want to melt completely my cold, cynical heart :P
posted by liza at 7:23 AM on December 22, 2010

SPANK? That's an unfortunate acronym of St Paul's Kids and Arts on many levels.
posted by moody cow at 12:20 PM on December 22, 2010

SPANK? That's an unfortunate acronym of St Paul's Kids and Arts on many levels.

Er, it's an acronym for St Paul's Arts 'n' Kids, so you can eliminate at least one layer.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:56 PM on December 22, 2010

Er, it's an acronym for St Paul's Arts 'n' Kids, so you can eliminate at least one layer.

Yeh, the least disturbing one.
posted by moody cow at 12:24 AM on December 23, 2010

Loved it! As New Zealander and someone with a Christian upbringing that lingers still, this spoke to me on many levels. What I liked most was the self-confidence in being Kiwi that it expressed. We are who we are, accent, sheep, 'n all.

And props to i_am_joe's_spleen for the Baxter poem. Perfect.
posted by vac2003 at 1:01 AM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I especially liked how the third king just sits there staring off into space while everyone else leaves and his present blows away.

So cute.
posted by OolooKitty at 4:44 PM on December 23, 2010

OMG, the star and the sheep.....aaaaah...cute overwhelming.
posted by dejah420 at 5:17 PM on December 24, 2010

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The Christmas story, New Zealand style December 21, 2010 2:40 PM Subscribe

The Christmas story, New Zealand style
December 21, 2010 2:40 PM Subscribe