Christmas redemption

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, November 8th.

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Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a new Christian Christmas movie.

This weekend, families can flock to theaters to watch a fresh take on Barbara Robinson’s classic children’s story, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The novel debuted more than 50 years ago, but reviewer Chelsea Boes says its message remains relevant today.

GROWNUP BETH: The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.

CHELSEA BOES: The Herdman kids lie. They steal. They smoke cigars—even the girls! And they’re about to take the residents of the little town of Emmanuel for a serious ride.

GROWNUP BETH: They were just so all-around awful, you could hardly believe they were real. No one knew why they were that way. It seemed they just came out of the womb mean.

Directed by Dallas Jenkins, creator of The Chosen, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever comes to theaters today. Barbara Robinson first published the story in McCall’s Magazine in 1971. More than half a century ago, the tale sold 800,000 copies in novel form. The story takes us back to a world that maybe doesn’t exist anymore—a world where a church Christmas pageant has all the town matriarchs gossiping on their landlines. The Herdmans, a family of unsupervised poor kids, come to church because they’ve heard they’ll get snacks there. Attracted by the possibility of pretending to be somebody else for a change, they bully their way into the lead roles of the cherished Nativity reenactment. The new movie version features some veteran actors: Perpetual romcom sidekick Judy Greer plays Mom, while Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls voices the narration as grownup Beth. Comedian Pete Holmes gives a great performance as Beth’s dad.

BROTHER: Oh no. Did somebody die?

DAD: It's worse than that, son. Your mom is running the Christmas pageant.

Where some faith-based films point the finger toward “outsiders,” Robinson’s story points instead at a sanctimonious church. It pulls our heartstrings as we watch the Herdmans learn the Christmas story for the first time.

CLAUDE HERDMAN: What were the wadded up clothes?! You said they wrapped him in wadded up clothes!

MOM: Swaddling clothes. They used to wrap their babies tightly in a big piece of fabric so they couldn’t move around.

IMOGENE HERDMAN: They tied him up and put him in a box? Where was child welfare?

The Herdmans in a scene from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever © 2024 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc.

Pageant rehearsals devolve into chaos when the Herdmans want “rewrites” so they can kill Herod and bring baby Jesus a better present than oil. But there’s truth under the apparent irreverence. As Beth gets a better idea of the Herdmans’ poverty, she starts to realize she’s experiencing the Nativity in a whole new way.

ALICE: You’re too dirty to play Mary, Imogene Herdman, everyone knows.

BETH: Alice!

IMOGENE: Who’s Mary?

BETH: Baby Jesus’s mom.

ALICE: Which everyone knows except you.

It’s hard to say if this adaptation has the seamlessness of a Christmas classic, but it’s working with great material that feels true to the wonder of the Nativity. It has an exceptional focus on the grace God’s people should extend to outsiders. The prudish little girl who usually plays Mary thinks “Jesus wouldn’t have suffered Herdmans.” But the story shows us that Alice—and the rest of us—are quite wrong about this. We have to admit we sometimes like church “because there are no Herdmans there.” Even if we would never say that out loud.

MOM: Don’t forget. The whole point of the story is that Jesus was born for the Herdmans as much as He was for us.

Granted, the film doesn’t move fast and it tells a small, mundane story that works better on paper. Visually, it’s mostly just some kids in a church. But it squeezes about as much excitement as possible from “The Emmanuel Annual” Christmas pageant, where kids wear their dads’ bathrobes and (until now) have never deviated from the script. Lovers of Robinson’s book will be happy to see Gladys Herdman’s famous ad lib come to life:

GLADYS: Hey! Unto you a child is born!

Which brings to mind perhaps my favorite aspect of this film.

The church people don’t have to stay the bad guys. They get a real chance to repent.

I’m Chelsea Boes.

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