Over the weekend, thousands gathered to watch approximately 1,200 volunteers in17,000 costumes, a 50-piece orchestra, and 21 animals take the stage at Prestonwood Baptist Church’s Christmas show in Plano, among beaming lights and angels ‘flying’ on harnesses.
The holiday show, titled “Gift of Christmas,” has been a tradition of the church for about 40 years, according to Texas Monthly. The magazine has dubbed it “America’s Most Extreme Christmas Pageant,” and in recent years, as it’s been picked up on TikTok and Instagram, the large performance has incited debate online over its extravagance. Ticket prices have come under scrutiny, as have sources of funding and proceeds.
But according to FOX DFW, church officials said the performance is funded from its own ticket sales, not church donations. Tickets for ‘Gift of Christmas” range from $20 to $60.
Andy Pearson, a worship minister at Prestonwood and creative director of “Gift of Christmas,” told Texas Monthly that the show has long been a big event.
“Back in the day they had an elephant onstage,” Pearson said to the magazine.
Now, no elephant is featured in the nearly two-hour retelling of the birth of Jesus. But, performers still share the stage with eight sheep, three camels, three peacocks, two donkeys, two zebras, two alpacas, and one horse.
Pearson also told the outlet that he keeps a close eye on baby showers in the months leading up to the performance for babies to play the infant Jesus across the various productions, and that 10 babies were selected from the congregation this year.
“We have a SignUpGenius,” Pearson told Texas Monthly.
The show opened for its two-weekend run Dec. 5, and users online have already posted their reactions after the first shows.
The performance draws tens of thousands of enthusiastic attendees. Johnny Quinn, a former U.S. Olympic bobsled team member, shared videos on social media of flying drummer boys, live animals in the nativity scenes, and strobe lights from the performance.
“It’s probably illegal to have recorded this short clip of the ‘drummer boy’ set but you HAVE to see it,” Quinn wrote on X.
Other users on social media said they disagreed with the elaborate nature of the church’s production, and the fact that Prestonwood charges for admission.
“Churches should never be able to ‘sell’ anything, tax the churches who ‘sell’,” user fullberries wrote on a Tiktok post by FOX DFW about the production .
“We are warned about this in the Bible,” user Nonix2 also commented.
On one attendee’s Tiktok video, users commented on the accuracy of the recreation of the biblical events. The video showed a sequence where drummers lit by strobing pink and green lights hang from harnesses above the audience.
“I don’t think any of that was in Bethlehem,” user lilpeege wrote.
Pearson told FOX DFW that the performance should be viewed as a different experience from their regular services, which are free of charge.
“Social media has changed the game because it allows people to speak of things they’ve never been to or been a part of,” Pearson said to FOX DFW in the video. “The Christmas show here is extraordinary, it’s over the top and it’s designed that way as an outreach for people to come into the church.”