The Best Christmas Pageant Revisited

Ask anyone about their plans from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve, and you will be regaled with narratives—from grinches to gadabouts and everything in between. Many can’t wait to put away their fall décor and haul out the inflatable surfing Santa, twelve Rubbermaid totes of tangled lights, and their guaranteed prize-winning ugly Christmas sweaters.

’Tis the season for families to attend the annual holiday school band and/or choir concerts. Unless your child is in ballet classes, in which case, congratulations! You’ve just been recruited to carpool for three weeks of additional rehearsals at the theater across town and a four-show run of The Nutcracker, starring your child as “Mouse #3.”

Even church calendars begin to fill up with the annual Christmas tea, Christmas bazaar, Christmas toy drive, Christmas potlucks, Christmas choir concert, Christmas caroling, and annual candlelight Christmas pageant.

Because our family worked part-time in the performing arts industry, our holiday seasons from Thanksgiving through New Years were non-stop performances: me in theater and my husband with his band. These were fun, festive, and exhausting years.

In 2004, we decided to take a break from performing all season and just focus on our family, our church, and the real meaning of Christmas. The following Sunday, we let our music director know that we could play on the worship team throughout the Christmas season. “That’s fantastic,” he said, “but would you be willing to direct the church Christmas pageant, too? None of the Sunday School teachers have volunteered yet.”

Without thinking, I one-upped the idea of the traditional pageant and offered to direct the heartwarming play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I even volunteered my husband to light the show. “It’s a church production, so we can do it as a family!”

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is based on Barbara Robinson’s 1972 book by the same name. In the story, the woman who always directs the Christmas pageant has broken her leg, and all the activities she oversaw must be reallocated to other women of the parish. A kindhearted mother of two named Grace gets guilted into directing the pageant.

When the six Herdman children, who rely on welfare and are introduced as “the worst kids in the whole history of the world,” [1] discover that if you attend Sunday School you get free treats, they devise a plan. The Herdmans decide it’s time to go to Sunday School and demand all the starring roles in the Christmas pageant even though they’ve never heard the Nativity story. Their raw, honest questions about Christ’s birth make the pageant unexpectedly moving, teaching the community about acceptance, compassion, and the real meaning of Christmas.

“There’s going to be something different this year.” [2]

I discovered that casting and directing a church production presents certain challenges different than those of a community or professional theater. In addition to the theatrical logistics and egos every show faces, you must get permission from all the pastors and staff while navigating church politics, the potential of being accused of nepotism, and enthusiastic volunteers with conflicting schedules—especially during the Christmas season. 

Casting brought me a group of ladies from the adult choir who were hysterical as the gossips of the Ladies Aid Society. Other roles fell into place with a surprisingly talented group of men, women, and children. In selecting the “good” kids and the Herdmans, I tactfully involved some of the staff members’ children, while our sons, Zachary and Jackson, played the rowdiest of the Herdmans.

As rehearsals began, families helped with the simple sets and props. A superbly talented group of women made the costumes. Dressing the Herdmans in the Gothic genre was the brainchild of one of the most conservative, old-school Baptist moms. Thank goodness I had cast her daughter as the irreverent Imogene Herdman.

“Where did they come from? Who let them in?” [3]

Dress rehearsal was the Saturday afternoon before Christmas Eve, and we were ready to add in all the preschool children in their angel costumes, poster-board wings and tinsel-garland halos. There were over forty of them sitting (fidgeting) in the back of the sanctuary, managed by their Sunday school teachers.

As I called for places, actors waited quietly in the prayer/green room behind the alter, except for the Herdmans, who were in the hallway outside the sanctuary ready to make their chaotic first entrance by running through the audience. My husband brought the houselights down. I had just cued the stage manager to “Go for scene one” when I heard shouting and arguing in the hallway where the Herdmans were. My husband brought up the houselights, as I ran into the hallway only to see the young actors, dressed in their Gothic costumes and makeup, trying to explain to an elderly couple that they were supposed to be here because they were in the church for the Christmas play.

“Get out of here! Get! Get!” the woman yelled. “Who do you think you are coming into a church dressed like that!” 

“What have you been doing sneaking around here?” questioned the man. “I am going to call the police!”

Then the couple saw me running toward them as I called out, “It’s ok. They are actors in the play—the church Christmas pageant for tomorrow night.”

Following my plea for understanding, off they went in search of the pastor to have us all thrown out. 

I turned and saw the Herdman actors backed up against the wall and asked them if they were ok. My son Zachary, who was playing Ralph Herdman, piped up, “No big deal mom. It’s what happens to us in the play.” 

“Hey! Hey! Unto you a child is born—It’s Jesus! He’s in the Barn!” [4]

On Christmas Eve, the church was packed with members, extended families, and those who attend faithfully on holidays. We knew some people would see the living room set replacing the traditional Christmas decorations and wonder what was happening. Our pastor welcomed everyone and explained that they were in for a beautiful message about the birth of Christ and His compassionate calling for us with the evening’s production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. With that, I called into my headset, “Go for scene one” and the show began. 

At first, hesitant laughter trickled throughout the congregation, then I felt them relax and enjoy the humorous stereotypes that rang true in the script about traditional pageants. When the Herdmans made their entrance with their boisterous dialogue and complete lack of discipline, there was a disturbance in the room. I heard rumblings from a few members of the audience. “How dare they speak to an adult like that!” and “They should be ashamed!” 

Alas, when Imogene Herdman questioned the use of swaddling clothes on Jesus and shouted, “You mean they tied him up and put him in a feed box?”[3] it was just too much for some of our older congregants, who stood up and echoed their displeasure throughout the room while walking out. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to these horrible children blaspheme my Savior!” 

To their credit, the young actors stayed in character and continued the scene. 

Surprisingly, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever turned out to be a huge success. We were given a standing ovation, and members of the congregation were requesting we do a second performance so they could bring their friends. As families were leaving, many of the cast members hung back, obviously feeling conflicted about the people who had interrupted the performance and walked out.

“Didn’t they understand that this was a play?”

“It was a story about putting on the pageant! We were acting as the Herdmans—real kids who didn’t know about Jesus and didn’t understand what the Nativity was.”

Listening from the sidelines, our youth pastor spoke up, “Ironically, that was the whole point of the play, wasn’t it? Religious zealots didn’t understand the plan God had for them. The Savior wasn’t coming as a worldly king dressed in fine robes, speaking eloquently to the masses. Instead, he came as a child born to weary refugees in an unsanitary barn.”

Silence filled the room. We had just experienced real rejection in the same manner that was portrayed in the play. The outburst from those few audience members occurred because they didn’t understand the message that Barbara Robinson, the author, intended. We gathered to pray for all who had come to the performance, especially for those who could not hear the message to love the undesirables—who instead saw the raw but innocent Nativity as blasphemy. 

As the cast members and their families left the sanctuary, they were overheard discussing how next year’s Christmas pageant shouldn’t be so picture perfect. “It needs to be more like it probably was, you know, shabbier costumes and live animals.” Then I heard a Herdman-like suggestion to bring in manure piles for more realism. Shouts of “No!” resounded from all within hearing distance.

Twenty-one years have passed since directing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. We didn’t give up performing during the holidays that year. But we did make it about our family, our church, and the real meaning of Christmas. And yes, it really is one of the best family Christmases ever.

[1] Barbara Robinson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

The featured image, “All Shall Kneel to Worship,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and used with her glad permission for Cultivating.

Hillevi Peterson

Hillevi Anne Peterson is a mother, wife, teacher, singer/songwriter, actress, writer, and a lifelong learner and adventurer. She holds a Masters in Teaching Literature and Communications from Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota and additional degrees in Communications and Media Studies, Visual Communication Technologies, and Music.

Born into a performing arts family, Hillevi donned ballet shoes at five, began piano at eight and got her first guitar at 12. But it was the church choir at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church that gave her voice wings. After losing her mom to Leukemia at age nine, music became a place for childhood grief when she sang. That Christmas, one of the parishioners gave Hillevi a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe — a book that began her lifelong journey desiring the mystery of Christ and celebrating Him through the arts.

Married to Derry Drayton Hirsch, Hillevi is the mother of five creative adult children. In January of 2009, the dream of living in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado came alive. They reside at an elevation of 9400 feet in the Pikes Peak National Forest in a home they call Middle Earth.