Retro Christmas

🎄 Retro Christmas invites audiences on a heartwarming journey through five generations of Christmas celebrations! From the roaring twenties to the modern-day digital age, the Phillips family looks back at how music, traditions, and the true meaning of Christmas have evolved — and how much has stayed the same.

Told through a split-stage drama with lively flashbacks to the 1940s, 1960s, and 1980s, this 40-minute play blends humor, touching family moments, and memorable era-appropriate music to capture the timeless spirit of Christmas.

With a large, flexible cast and simple staging, Retro Christmas is perfect for churches and community groups seeking a nostalgic yet meaningful celebration of faith, family, and the enduring message of Christ's birth.

Cast: 20

• Scenes 1, 3, 5 & 7:
  • Great Gran likely 80+
  • Grandpa Jim, 60’s, son of Great Gran
  • Grandma Florence, 60’s, Jim’s wife
  • Anderson, 40’s, son of Jim and Florence
  • Rachel, 40’s, Anderson’s wife
  • Dillon, teen, son of Anderson and Rachel
  • Amanda, teen, daughter of Anderson and Rachel
  • Ricky, early teen or pre-teen, son of Anderson and Rachel
• Scene 2 (1980’s, ongoing actors are appropriately younger):
  • Great Gran
  • Jim
  • Florence
  • Anderson
  • (optionally add Anderson’s siblings, non-speaking roles)
• Scene 4 (1960’s, ongoing actors are appropriately younger):
  • Great Gran
  • Jim
  • Florence
  • Emily, 20’s, (Rachel’s mother to be)
  • Tommy, 20’s, (Rachel’s father to be)
• Scene 6 (1940’s, ongoing actors are appropriately younger)
  • Great Gran
  • Jim (as a baby)
  • Albert, 20-30’s, (Great Gran’s husband who died in the war)

Bible Reference: 2Corintians 8-9
Set:

• A split stage is recommended so that flashbacks can be staged on Stage 2 without waiting for set changes.
• Stage 1 is Grandma’s living room, Stage 2 is likely bare, could have some set pieces and props to indicate era.

Sound: wireless mics if possible
Song: none
Lighting: ability to darken the set between scenes would be useful
SFX: none
Props: TV, newspapers, books, MP3’s, walkman, cassette player, phonograph and records
Costumes: era appropriate costumes should be used in flashbacks
Special Instructions:

• The actors used in scenes 2, 4 and 6 could, in some cases, be the same as used in the other scenes, aged appropriately, or more likely would be different actors.
  Era-appropriate Christmas music can be played or sung after each scene.

Time: 40

Sample script:

Retro Christmas © — Sample Pages
(Excerpt from Scene 1 — Grandma’s House, Current Era)

[Lights up on Stage 1: Grandma’s living room. Dillon is listening to an MP3, adults are reading, watching TV. Dillon sings loudly and off-key:]

Dillon:
🎵 "Have an ecologically sound, ecumenical all-around mid-winter celebration in the December station..." 🎵

Jim, jumping up:
Whatever is that screaming about?

Anderson:
Son, that music is way too loud! I can hear it clear over here, and you’ve got it piped straight into your ears, boy! I just read an article that says teens today are going deaf from blasting music into their eardrums!

Jim:
What's that boy even listening to?

Rachel:
Oh, it’s just the Christmas CD I bought Dillon for his MP3 player.

Jim:
(Looks at her in disbelief) You bought that CD... on purpose?

Florence:
Jim, the boy is enjoying himself. Leave him be.

Jim:
Did you hear the words, Florence? Ecological... Ecumenical... That’s what they call Christmas music nowadays?

Amanda enters, bopping to her own MP3 player. Florence calls out:

Florence:
Hi sweetie—

(Amanda doesn’t hear. Florence pulls out her earplug and speaks into Amanda’s ear.)

Florence:
Earth to Amanda, is my granddaughter hidden away somewhere deep in there?

Amanda:
Hi Gran! You really oughta hear this music — Purple Skunks! (Hands Florence the earbud) Don’t you just love that beat, Gran?

(Florence discreetly removes the earplug after a moment.)

Florence:
Well dear, I must say... that is without question the best music I have ever heard from a group of... purple skunks.

(Family exchanges amused looks.)

Amanda:
No, not a group Gran — Purple Skunks is a one-man band. He’s out of Cincinnati.

Jim:
I’m sure all the good folks in Cincinnati are pleased that he’s outta there... and hoping he won’t come back!

(Ricky comes on stage, rapping and moving to the beat.)

Ricky:
🎵 "Christmas can be somethin’ of a trap
That’s why we are singin’ the Christmas rap
Santa drives his reindeer ‘round the world
Figure likely he’ll forget some boy or girl
So we figured out a cool backup plan
Got ourselves a backup Santa dude man
And so we rap... (slap, slap)
The Christmas rap... (slap, slap)
It is a snap... (slap, slap)
The Christmas rap... (slap, slap)" 🎵

(Everyone — except the children, Anderson, and Rachel — stands in shock.)

Florence, to Ricky:
Does it hurt much when you do that, Ricky?

Ricky:
Gran, that is serious... "with it"... rap.

Jim:
"With it"?
(Have you ever tried... without it?)

(Florence looks over at Great Gran, who remains completely unbothered.)

Florence:
Can you believe Great Gran hasn’t heard one bit of all this wild music?

(Great Gran doesn’t react.)

Anderson:
What I can’t believe is the music of today!
Where have the wonderful old Christmas songs gone?
I remember the great Christmas music back when I was a kid...

Scene 2, Stage 2

1980’s timeframe, all characters adjusted to their current age. Great Gran, Jim, Florence, Anderson, and (optionally) Anderson’s siblings are on stage reading, watching (smaller) TV
Anderson comes on stage listening to walkman, swaying to a song,

Anderson: 🎵"Feed the world Let them know it's Christmastime again Feed the world Let them know it's Christmastime again"🎵 

Jim: Son, get those things out of your ears! . . You will be going deaf from all that noise channelled straight into your ear drums! . . You just wait, couple of generations down the way folks will all be wearing hearing aids, and you know what's causing it? . . . Loud music is causing it, that's what!

Great Gran: Go easy on the boy Jim, after all it is a lovely song . . I must say I do like Band-Aid a lot better than most of the current crop of singers we got around now.

Anderson: Thanks Grandma, isn’t it an awesome song, don't you just love it?

Great Gran: Well, Anderson, I will have to say that when it comes to Christmas songs no one can confuse Band-Aid with Bing Crosby or the Andrews Sisters, but . ."

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