Gift of Christmas

The Gift of Christmas (GOC) is one of the largest Christmas pageants in the US, and is one of the top-rated Christmas-related events in the state of Texas. It takes place in the Worship Center of Prestonwood Baptist Church, in Plano, Texas. GOC is one of three major outreach efforts of Prestonwood, with the others being PowerPoint Ministries and Prestonwood Sports Outreach.

It usually has 500 persons, 70 pieces of orchestra and 100 behind-the-scenes technical crew members, a large number of who are volunteers. [1] Each year there are around 12-14 GOC performances, most of which sell out. There are about 70,000 guests who watch production every year. [2]

The performance

The GOC is divided into two acts, with no intermission between them.

The first act is oriented toward the secular observances of Christmas (e.g. non-religious Christmas songs, portrayal of Santa Claus) with children playing prominent roles in the scenes, while the second act is oriented toward the religious side of Christmas (e.g. traditional religious Christmas songs, the events surrounding the birth of Jesus) with adults playing prominent roles in the scenes. After the second act a Gospel presentation is given. The total running time for the entire GOC is around two hours maximum.

Past performances have featured:

  • Flying angels and flying drummer boys (the flying drummer boys are often the most popular act)
  • Live animals (camels, donkeys, sheep) including horse-drawn carriages
  • Appearances by: Raggedy Ann dolls, Frosty, music box figurines, gingerbread men, dancing Christmas trees, reindeer, elves, Santa and Mrs Claus, and a real sleigh that flies 70 feet over the audience
  • Various forms of dance, including tap, swing, ballroom, and ballet.
  • Special effects (fog, lightning, earthquakes, the audience sprinkled with confetti, surrounded by stars, and even snow

Stage and Seating

The GOC stage includes an 85-foot-wide (26 m) proscenium arch, and about 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) of staging area including an orchestra pit. This is larger than the normal platform for Prestonwood's church services, requiring removal of 1,000 seats from the lower seating area (reducing the overall seating capacity from the normal 7,000 during services to around 6,000).

However, even with the reduced capacity, the still-large sanctuary provides a suitable venue for GOC performances (unobstructed sight-lines from every seat, with the farthest seat less than one-and-a-half times the width of the stage from the closest seat, along with lighting and sound quality the same in any seat).

References
  1. Megachurches put on a megaproductions for the Christmas Story, by the Associated Press Retrieved 23 July 2013
  2. Gloria, A Thousand Voices Sing Christmas Archived 2013-07-23 at Archive.today Retrieved 23 July 2013
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