Bethel Community Church gave people a chance to see what Christmas would be like without Jesus during their rendition of "It's a Wonder FULL Life" last weekend. </p><p>Mem- bers of the church's TWISTED Youth Group and the Extreme Kids Ministry presented the play. </p><p>The production takes its name from the perennial Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life"; it also hits on some of the themes. </p><p>In the Frank Capra-directed classic, Jimmy Stewart plays a banker who, discontented with his life, considers suicide and is shown what the world would be like without him by an angel named Clarence. </p><p>Under Kim Flores' direction, Bethel's 45-minute stage play spotlights Henry, a gift-driven child actor in a fictional children's play. An angel (played by Christian Hanoum) teaches Henry (Henry Flores) and the other children the real meaning of Christmas by removing Jesus from the holiday.</p><p>"This production is a Christmas play about children doing a Christmas play and one child who wishes they didn't have to go through the whole nativity story at Christmastime and that they could go straight to presents," said Flores.</p><p>In the play, Henry, who portrays a child playing a shepherd in a generic Christmas play, communicates his discontent about having to clean up after the production and not run home to open gifts. Henry covets a life-sized robot that he believes will make his life complete.</p><p>As Henry expresses his selfishness and youthful cynicism to other members of the cast, a crotchety old janitor, working a mop bucket, engages the children. The janitor (who is really an angel) gives Henry an eye-opening lesson as baby Jesus disappears from the manger.</p><p>Through a series of vignettes that include dancing grinches, bells without clappers, trees without sparkle, and gift boxes that are empty, Henry and the other children learn that without Jesus Christ the very things that they enjoy so much about Christmas simply disappear -- including the presents.</p><p>Hanoum, who has had previous drama experience with Los Banos Junior High School and other church plays, confides that he had only two weeks to perfect the part of the angel who mentors Henry. Still, Hanoum enjoyed being in the play. </p><p>"I had fun doing it," he said. "They just threw me in because they needed someone in the play, and I'm like, 'OK I'll take this as a challenge' and I developed the character as a kind of a southern grizzly old man."</p><p>Hanoum said he had found a bit of deeper meaning while doing the play. </p><p>"It opened my eyes," he said. "You get bum-rushed with all these presents and gifts but if you take all that away, if you take Jesus away, none of that is there. So, the true meaning of Christmas IS Jesus," he said.</p><p>The "It's a Wonder FULL Life" production was something of a departure from the church's usual Christmas offering.</p><p>"We normally do a large production called 'The Christmas Journey,' but we took a year off from that," said Steve Hammond, Bethel's senior pastor. "We've done ['Christmas Journey'] several years in a row and we have a lot of new people -- so several people didn't know about it and so we had to get more people acclimated to the 'Journey.' Also, there's a lot goin' on. A lot of things kinda happened at one time where we would normally have the 'Journey.' So instead of trying to piece it together and not do a great job with it, we decided to take a year off."</p><p>Bethel's "It's a Wonder FULL Life" production featured about 40 children who have been practicing since the beginning of November. There were about 15 speaking parts and 15 singing parts.</p><p>"They've all been coming at least three times a week to practice and they're all very excited to do it," said Flores. "They've invited teachers, friends and family and they're all really excited. I'm proud of all of them, they've all worked really hard."