What I’ve Been Reading–The Best Christmas Book Ever

Every year the Christmas books come out for display. Every year I re-read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Really, there’s nothing like it. The understated humor, the clear-eyed child narrator who sees very flaw of the adult world with precision and affection, the marvelous transgressive awfulness of the Herdmans (“the worst kids in the history of the world”), and most of all, the dead-on depiction of the Christmas pageant as it goes in every church, every year, world without end.

There was the usual big mess all over the place–baby angels getting poked in the eye by other baby angels’ wings and grumpy shepherds stumbling over their bathrobes. The spotlight swooped back and forth and up and down till it made you sick at your stomach to look at it, and, as usual, whoever was playing the piano pitched “Away in a Manger” so high we could hardly hear it, let along sing it. My father says “Away in a Manger” always starts out sound like a closetful of mice.

I even find some strange enjoyment in the fact that (like the Grinch) the Herdmans are content in their own awfulness. Clearly this family is in dire straits–overworked single mother, no father, little money–but they don’t seem to care. Nobody seems to care–not their teachers or social workers or any adults in the community. But the kids, seen through another kid’s eyes, are fine, and it’s because they are so powerful. They do what they want, say what they want, and get what they want–no matter what, no matter how.

Yet the Herdmans are not one-dimensional either–they care for each other, they care for the baby Jesus, and they’re ready to fight to see right done. Even if they do shove pussy willow buds down people’s ears and smoke cigars in the ladies’ room at church.

Long live the Herdmans!