The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

“My father said it was the only good thing the Herdmans ever did, and if they’d known it was a good thing, they wouldn’t have done it at all. They would have set fire to something else…or somebody.” 

When the narrator’s father learns about the toolhouse burning down, he agrees that it was a blessing in disguise. The shed had been decrepit and infested with rats. If the Herdmans had known about its unattractive qualities, he thinks they would have been more careful. The fire foreshadows the Herdmans’ ability to create a positive result from a negative action. 

“He went every year but it was always a struggle, and Mother said that was her contribution to the Christmas pageant—getting my father to go to it.” 

The narrator’s father prefers not to attend the Christmas pageant. He says that it’s always the same. Her mother obviously feels obligated to make him go, but neither of them looks forward to it. She makes him go as part of a tradition as much as anything. Neither of them put much thought—on the page, at least—into why they are going. 

“Most of us spent all week in school being pounded and poked and pushed around by Herdmans, and we looked forward to Sunday as a real day of rest.”

The religion in the story is treated fairly casually, but the Sunday respite from the Herdmans is real. Children who find Sunday school tedious still enjoy the break from the Herdmans. In fact, they may look forward to Sundays more than their parents. However, there is no mention of anyone who looks forward to church for the joy of worshipping.

“It really means that every single person in the pageant is just as important as every other person—that the littlest baby angel is just as important as Mary.” 

While casting the play, the narrator and her mother try to make sense of the phrase that there are no small parts, only small actors. They both think it means that the shortest kids have to be in the front row. However, the quote emphasizes that everyone involved in the pageant has an important role to play. 

“I’d heard Imogene Herman telling Alice what would happen to her if she dared to volunteer: all the ordinary, everyday Herdman-things like clonking you on the head, and drawing pictures all over your homework papers, and putting worms in your coat pocket.”

Imogene goes to great lengths to play the mother of Jesus in the pageant. She is able to intimidate Alice into stepping down, but only with the threat of harassment and gross threats. Her tactics also show the Herdmans’ creativity in getting their way. Imogene is also honest, and Alice knows she would follow through. 

“The first pageant rehearsal was usually about as much fun as a three-hour ride on the school bus, and just as noisy and crowded. This rehearsal, though, was different. Everybody shut up and settled down right away, for fear of missing something awful the Herdmans might do.” 

The spectacle of the Herdmans at rehearsal changes another tradition: the tradition of the children being noisy, distracted, and bored. The rehearsals allow them to observe the Herdmans without being the target of their attention. Though they are not aware of it, the Herdmans are giving them a break from an unfulfilling tradition. 

“What was the matter with Joseph that he didn’t tell them? Her pregnant and everything.” 

Imogene isn’t asking this question out of belligerence. She can’t imagine why Joseph wouldn’t speak up and say more about his pregnant wife, the child she was carrying, and how desperate their circumstances were. She is trying to understand the story rather than just accepting what she is told. 

“When they got to the part about swaddling clothes and the manger, Imogene asked, ‘You mean they tied him up and put him in a feedbox? Where was the Child Welfare?’”

Imogene doesn’t understand the notion of swaddling clothes. For that matter, neither does the narrator. When Imogene asks why Child Welfare didn’t intervene, it’s funny but sad. The notion of an ancient office of Child Welfare is comical, but it’s also tragic that Imogene is obviously acquainted with the duties of a Child Welfare office.

“‘We don’t show Herod in our pageant,’ Mother said. And they all got mad. They wanted somebody to be Herod so they could beat up on him.”

The Herdmans are surprised that King Herod, the Christmas story’s villain, doesn’t appear in the pageant. They think anyone evil enough to kill a baby should be punished publicly, even in the play. They will also be confused when there is no record of King Herod getting his comeuppance. Whatever their faults, the Herdmans are protective of baby Jesus. They even propose altering the play to include the capture and execution of King Herod. 

“Just suppose you had never heard the Christmas story, and didn’t know anything about it, and then somebody told it to you. What would you think?”

When the narrator’s father asks how the first rehearsal went, his wife responds with this quote. It raises an interesting question for Christian believers. Can they imagine how they would react to the story if they had never heard of Jesus? It is almost impossible to imagine never having learned something that has been part of one’s entire life. 

“They picked out the right villain—that must mean something.”

The narrator’s mother is impressed that the Herdmans felt such loathing for King Herod. Their focus on King Herod also makes her wonder why she and her family have never paid any attention to Herod other than his role as the first threat to Jesus. Ironically, the narrator’s family did not pick out the right villain. 

“When Imogene Herdman came in and said she wanted to read about Jesus, I knew I’d heard everything there was to hear.” 

Mrs. Graebner, the librarian, tells the narrator’s mother that she is ready to retire. She was surprised to see Imogene in the library. However, that surprise was nothing compared to the shock of Imogene asking about Jesus and King Herod. Mrs. Graebner is another example of someone whose perspective on the Herdmans shifts because of their involvement in the pageant. 

“They showed up at rehearsals, right on time, and did just what they were supposed to do. But they were still Herdmans, and there was at least one person who didn’t forget that for a minute.” 

The Herdmans are more dedicated than ever after learning about King Herod. Slowly, the other children begin to accept them and their roles. The Herdmans don’t cause trouble at rehearsal; they just have many questions. Alice clings to her bitterness, however. She still sees Imogene as merely the person who took her spot as Mary and constantly watches for ways to get the Herdmans in trouble. 

“Since none of the Herdmans had ever gone to church or Sunday school or read the Bible or anything, they didn’t know how things were supposed to be. Imogene, for instance, didn’t know that Mary was supposed to be acted out a certain way—sort of quiet and dreamy and out of this world. The way Imogene did it, Mary was a lot like Mrs. Santoro at the pizza parlor.” 

Despite there being no photos or recordings of Mary, everyone seems to know exactly how she should sound and act. On the other hand, Imogene treats her role as Mary in terms of getting the results she wants—in this case, the protection of Jesus. Imogene’s Mary is assertive, defiant, and loud. She can’t let anyone doubt that she takes her mission seriously. 

“‘A doll can’t bite you,’ she pointed out. Which just went to prove that Herdmans started out mean, right from the cradle.” 

Imogene likes the idea of having a doll as Jesus instead of a real baby. Her experience with babies informs her that they are likely to bite. It’s unlikely that Imogene has experience with babies outside of holding her infant siblings, which is a commentary on how babies behave in the Herdmans’ house. A new arrival in the Herdmans’ house is instantly subjected to the harsh realities of life without steady parents and thinks it must lash out to protect itself. 

“‘I’ve got the baby here,’ Imogene barked at the Wise Men. ‘Don’t touch him! I named him Jesus.’” 

Imogene understands that her primary role as Mary is to protect her baby, even if it means suspecting the Wise Men of ulterior motives. She then asks how they knew the Wise Men wouldn’t return to Herod and tell him where Jesus was. She wants to keep him safe from anyone who might be dangerous. 

“‘Why, it’s going to be the best Christmas pageant we’ve ever had!’ Of all the lies she’d told so far, that was the biggest, but you had to admire her.” 

The narrator’s mother begs Reverend Hopkins not to cancel the play after the incident with the cigar smoke in the bathroom. Even though everyone is in an uproar, she wants to see it through. The narrator believes she is lying, and perhaps her mother does as well. Nevertheless, her mother is correct, although for reasons she could not have predicted. 

“After all, that was the whole point of Jesus—that he didn’t come down on a cloud like something out of ‘Amazing Comics,’ but that he was born and lived…a real person.”

The narrator thinks it’s reasonable to imagine a baby Jesus who needed to be burped or got hungry or fussy. For her, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the familiar, divine, adult version of Jesus should have been an angelic, tranquil baby. She doesn’t think this is disrespectful. The notion of a cranky baby Jesus makes the story feel more realistic to her. 

“They looked like the people you see on the six o’clock news—refugees, sent to wait in some strange ugly place, with all their boxes and sacks around them. It suddenly occurred to me that this was just the way it must have been for the real Holy Family, stuck away in a barn by people who didn’t much care what happened to them. They couldn’t have been very neat and tidy either, but more like this Mary and Joseph.” 

Imogene and Ralph look bewildered when they walk in as Mary and Joseph. This is understandable because the Herdmans are not used to having an audience. They are as out of place and as uncomfortable as Mary and Joseph probably would have been. The narrator realizes that she is seeing a more realistic depiction of that fateful night than any traditional nativity scene.

“‘It came from their food basket, and if they want to give away their own ham I guess they can do it.’ But even if the Herdmans didn’t like ham (that was Alice’s next idea), they had never before in their lives given anything away except lumps on the head. So you had to be impressed.”

The narrator sees that the Herdmans offered the ham from their own food basket to make a better gift for Jesus. They complained about the Wise Men’s gifts and refused to play the Wise Men according to the story’s tradition. Rather than precious oils, the Herdman boys sacrifice something that they could have enjoyed for themselves. Giving away a fancy dinner is a meaningful, selfless gesture for children who fend for themselves. 

“It seemed to me that the Herdmans had improved the pageant a lot, just by doing what came naturally—like burping the baby for instance, or thinking a ham would make a better present than a perfumed oil.”

The narrator is impressed that the Herdmans capture the true spirit of the pageant simply by stepping outside of the scripted story. They treat the night of Jesus’s birth like any other—with useful gifts and acts. The changes happen organically, without any disrespect or mocking of tradition. The Herdmans are authentic, and they make the story feel authentic again.

“Well. It was the best Christmas pageant we ever had. Everybody said so, but nobody seemed to know why.” 

Everyone agrees it was a special night, even if no one knows why it mattered so much more than usual. After the narrator sees Imogene crying, she wishes the Herdmans could be in charge of the pageant again. Imogene was experiencing something beyond words in terms of how it moved her. The pageant felt so special because they felt the story rather than reciting it or listening to the same old thing once more. 

“Everyone sang ‘Silent Night,’ including the audience. We sang all the verses too, and when we got to ‘Son of God, Love’s pure light,’ I happened to look at Imogene and I almost dropped my hymn book on a baby angel. Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened. Imogene Herdman was crying. In the candlelight her face was all shiny with tears and she didn’t even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there—awful old Imogene—in her crookedy veil, crying and crying and crying.”

When the narrator sees Imogene crying, it is the most unexpected part of the night. Imogene appears to be experiencing what everyone is there for—to be moved by the story of Jesus. The narrator still refers to her as “awful old Imogene,” but she is seeing a side of her that she couldn’t have imagined. Imogene is vulnerable.