Home Free: a review of ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’
I’m pretty sure I was in a Christmas pageant when I was a little boy, probably at the Worthington (Ohio) United Methodist Episcopal Church, where I also sang in the children’s choir. I’ve never been able to read music (except drum notations), and I can’t carry a tune. But I could listen and imitate, although I mostly hummed. Still, this was almost 70 years ago, and memory fades.
Christmas pageants have been featured in a number of movies, most notably in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), in which “Billy,” who can’t be more than 6 years old, does a run-through of the story of the birth of Jesus for Fr. O’Malley (Bing Crosby) and Sister Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergen). It’s funny and charming.
Just released is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and it’s funny and charming. It’s about a church in a small town that yearly puts on a pageant, which the longtime director insists on keeping unchanged in almost every detail, save the kids cast to play Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.
