The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)



The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)

“What is she wearing?”

“She brought something from home. She said if she was going to do this she was going to look like the real Mary. They look like refugees.”

“Yeah, they do.”
-The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)

In all honesty, it's easy to take the holiday season for granted. From Thanksgiving to Christmas and New Year's. The holiday season is something we experience every single year, and we will continue to experience it for the rest of our lives. It strikes me that even during this time of the year, we often forget that the holidays are not about our feelings or even the feelings of those we love. In truth the holidays are about people and how they have affected our lives for the better. Even when those people are not as pristine or perfect as we may want them to be.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever beautifully encapsulates this idea, by reminding us that life is life; it's not a perfectly pristine painting or a stained glass window. For sure, life is difficult and people struggle, but that's okay. We all are trying to find our path through this life that God has given us. That is what this film does so succinctly. The Best Christmas Ever is a call to remember that God did not come to earth to save perfect people but to heal broken ones. Put another way, no one is perfect. Everyone needs to be healed in some way.
This story of a disenfranchised malcontent of a family finds its innate charm in the fact that we all are disenfranchised and malcontented at some level. The Herdman's interruption of a small town's stale Christmas tradition evokes far more than just a jolt out of a decades long reverie. This gaggle of supposedly dysfunctional children brings humanity back into the Nativity story. An aspect of the birth of Christ that we so often forgo, perceiving The Nativity instead as a perfect stained-glass window of humanity. However this is not reality, nor is it the truth that lies behind the birth of Jesus.
Indeed, the Herdman's call to mind the realities of Christmas that we so often lose sight of in the hustle and bustle of the season. Though, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever isn't solely a quirky reminder of the “reason for the season”. A sentiment by the way, that has sadly become so routine in and of itself, that in some ways, it too has lost its needed impact. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever then comes to the rescue. The film, and book it is based on rambunctiously reevaluate the above routines and misconceptions. Wonderfully aligning them with the realities and indignities of our human nature in the process. To be precise, it places Jesus's birth in the difficulties of history where it belongs.
That said, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever does not lose its delightful exuberance in the process. Far from it, it achieves this historical grounding with a vibrant enthusiasm and a childlike wonder that never takes the Christmas spirit for granted. The film asks us to recall the fact that the greatest miracle of all time happened within Time. The Incarnation finds its weight in the fact that God became Man in every aspect except for sin. In other words, God showed us that physical frailty and human eccentricity has worth. Ultimately, director Dallas Jenkins and his team delightfully entreat us to remember that we all have a God-given dignity. When it comes to, we all need a chance to reveal that dignity to others, and or find it within ourselves.

Rated PG thematic elements and brief underage smoking.

I found The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to be charmingly enthralling, enormously entertaining and deeply meaningful. I hope in some way you do too.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever can be purchased or rented on any digital video streaming service. It is also available physically on DVD and Blu-ray disc.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Made Man's Mouth: Recontextualizing Disability as an Ordinary, Every Day, Purpose Driven Life

Image
Michelangelo's Moses c.1513-1515 Who Made Man's Mouth:   Recontextualizing Disability as an Ordinary, Every Day, Purpose Driven Life     "I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people, and I want to live in a world where a kid in year 11 at a Melbourne high school is not one bit surprised that his new teacher is a wheelchair user. Disability does not make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does." -Stella Young, TEDxSidney 2014      When you realize that perhaps you've been misunderstanding a core tenant of  yourself for a better part of your life, you begin to deconstruct the factors that brought you to that realization. Now, before we start this journey I want to say that I am not a theologian nor am I trying to be one. This endeavor is as much a journey of discovery for me as it is for you. It is a recontextualization of ...
Read more

My Top 5 Films of 2024

Image
5.  Twisters 2024 “Nature's masterpiece.” If you feel it, chase it” “You don't face your fears you ride them” All right, I'll just say it, Twisters is an exhilarating experience. It is one of the most well orchestrated summer blockbusters that I have seen in years. Yet, it is also a film that never forgets the vehicles of utter power and destruction that it illustrates on-screen. Perhaps that is the film's strength: it is able, in a real tangible way, to convey these acts of God with respect and reverence for their awesome power. It does this, without losing, for one second the thrill and wonder of the chase. Twisters is a roller coaster ride in the best sense of the phrase. It has heart, meaning and poignancy in every inch of its special effects filled plunge, into the thrills and difficulties of storm chasing. On that note it is a movie that uses all of the available filmic and auditory tools to the greatest effect. At least to my ears Twisters is an exh...
Read more

Me Before You: A Monk, A King and A Disabled Metaphor Fallacy

Image
  Me Before You: A Monk, A King and A Disabled Metaphor Fallacy “I know this can be a good life, but it's not my life, it's not even close. you never saw me before, I loved my life. I really loved it. I can't be the kind of man that just accepts this.” “You're not giving it a chance. You're not giving me a chance.” “I don't want you to miss all the things someone else can give you.” -Me Before You, 2016 There is a deeply warranted sentiment in the disability community to not give Me Before You anywhere near the time of day. I couldn't agree more. This film, and the novel it's based on, severely misrepresent disability in all its varied forms. Crafting a story housed in the belief that life is only worth our physical prowess and selfish desires. Me Before You is ableism at Its most tyrannical and suffocating. It seems as if our world wants disability to vanish into oblivion, and Me Before You prolongs that horrific stereotype, with no care for its end....
Read more