Accepting: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Imagine if you had never heard the Christmas story in your whole life. How would you interpret it? What would you do if you were the wise men? The angel? Mary or Joseph? The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson is a short children's story first published in 1972, and it answers these questions from a child's perspective. The book recounts how a church's Christmas pageant went from expecting to flop to being the greatest of all time. And it all begins when the worst children in town, the Herdmans, show up at Sunday school because they heard there was cake for refreshments every Sunday. The editorial review on Amazon states it this way: The Herdmans—Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys—are the town bullies who steal and smoke cigars. When they show up for the church Christmas pageant try-outs, no one is able to discourage them from participating. To the protests of children who think they can do better, the Herdmans land the starring roles in the Christmas play. Their unique interpretation of a story they've never heard before surprises even the most regular of church-goers.—Kirsten Martindale, formerly Menomonie Public Library, WI 

I don't want to spoil the story, but I will tell you it makes me cry every time. After reading, I am reminded of the same concept of Jesus that the narrator speaks, "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." He was a baby, he was born, he was burped, he lived. Yes, he was different in that he had an assembly of angels announce his birth and was brought expensive gifts by foreign dignitaries, but for me, the wonder of Christmas lies in humble thought that God became a human because of his great love. Why would he do something so great for someone so small? He is a great gift indeed, and this story is about truly accepting that gift.
And this was the funny thing about it all. For years, I'd thought about the wonder of Christmas, and the mystery of Jesus' birth, and never really understood it. But now, because of the Herdmans, it didn't see so mysterious after all.
     When Imogene had asked me what the pageant was about, I told her it was about Jesus, but that was just part of it. It was about a new baby, and his mother and father who were in a lot of trouble--no money, no place to go, no doctor, nobody they knew. And then, arriving from the East (like my uncle from New Jersey) some rich friends.
      But Imogene, I guess, didn't see it that way. Christmas just came over her all as once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying, and walking into furniture.
As the Gladys the angel says, "Hey! Unto you a child is born!"


Honorable Mention
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski is a shorter, illustrated story about the restoration of hope. Jonathan Toomey, nicknamed by the local children Mr. Gloomy, is a woodcarver. His world is changed when he meets a little boy and he widowed mother who hire him to make a replacement Nativity set. Accepting changes a person. This book gives you all the feels...in a good way.

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