When I was a child, I read the book "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever". You can find a video of it on YouTube.
The story centers around a family called the Hurdmans. These were the worst-behaved kids in the school. They weren't far above being headed for borstal or worse. Anyway, the kids decided they wanted to be part of the church's Christmas pageant. The oldest girl decided that she would be Mary, her older brother would be Joseph, their other three brothers would be the Wise Men, and their youngest sister would be the angel. At that, a whole bunch of children decided to start pulling out of being shepherds. One said they were going to Philadelphia for Christmas. Another said his mother didn't want him to be a shepherd. Finally one was honest and said, "I don't want to be a shepherd. Gladys Hurdman hits too hard." This was followed by the narrator saying, "Everyone was imagining Gladys whamming shepherds left and right, but Mother said that was perfectly ridiculous." (Those were my favourite lines out of the whole book.)