A pantomime with a difference

Our WI held its Carol service at the Cathedral in the Peak, Tideswell yesterday. I arrived about an hour early and went into the church to check all was ready.

At the front of the church sat a husband and wife whilst their 3 young children were having a wonderful time performing a pantomime. They were using the lectern, climbing up and down to the pulpit and using a choir pew as a bed.
The story was magical and a little hard to follow for adults but it included someone dying in the bed - with arms folded across her chest, making reindeer soup for Santa, dancing and riding horses up and down the aisle.
The father kept trying to hurry it along by saying, "We need a happy ending." It never came!
Eventually the family put their coats on to leave and I asked the little girl narrator what was 'the happy ending. Without any thought, she replied as if I should have known..., "They got married!"
It felt like Christmas had really begun and what a delightful family. It took me back to my childhood visits to church where we had to sit in silence in church and such antics would not have been tolerated.
I had never seen or met this family before but the memory of them will give me a smile that will last throughout Christmas.