Payson Roundup | Payson, AZ

Pilgrims, Native Americans and turkeys converged last Tuesday afternoon at Payson Elementary School as three first-grade classes performed a series of Thanksgiving skits.

Riddles aplenty puzzled the adult audience in one skit. Why do turkeys eat so little? ’Cause they’re always stuffed, of course.

Wearing costumes made mostly with construction paper, the first-graders performed for an adoring audience which squeezed into first-grade-sized chairs and held requisite camcorders.

Students wore colorful paper feathers and paper pilgrim hats with yellow buckles. Student turkeys dressed in brown sweatsuits and flounced about in red, orange and yellow paper that was folded accordion style.

Turkeys escaped from pens, pilgrims sang and all rejoiced.

In one skit, first-graders portrayed native generosity when those dressed as Native Americans offered sustenance to the pilgrims who initially expressed skepticism of the natives’ intentions.

“What if they attack us?” wondered a pilgrim.

“I don’t want to see you starve,” a Native American told them.

Students also spelled Thanksgiving with large lettered signs during another skit, using the letters to jump-start poetic lines like, “G is for Grandma, the one I love the most.”

During the finale, students sang “God Bless America” and surely warmed not a few hearts.

After the play, parents present were permitted to take their children home. An early school dismissal — now that is something for which to be thankful.