Today, my four year old and I went to see my six year old in the first grade Thanksgiving play at our local parish school. It’s nice because all the grades comes down to watch it too and since I pretty much have a kid in every grade it’s like a little family reunion.

So all the first graders came out in pilgrim hats and they suffered through the cramped spaces on the Mayflower. It was my six year old who first spotted America. Yay us.

So all the kids line up pretending to be on land and the narrator says, “It was a harsh winter and some of them died.”

Suddenly half of the first graders just dropped to the ground. Boom. Dead.

Silence.

And then uproarious laughter from all the parents and kids who were just so surprised. All I could think was that I’ve seen lots of Thanksgiving plays but this is the first time they killed half the class. Normally they skip that part.

Don’t worry all the dead pilgrims came back to life as Native Americans.

And later in all the kids even pretended to hunt for food with invisible guns. And the pilgrims and the Indians all prayed together. Gasp!

I can’t help but think that this wouldn’t go on in a public school.

I saw one of the parents of another first grader while the four year old and I ran across the street to 7-11 for Gulps and Chocolate Milk. I asked him if his kid had survived the harsh winter.

“No,” he said ruefully. “But she was the first to hit the ground at least.”

“There’s mercy in that,” I told him and we laughed.