Christmas pageants and plays, populated with preschoolers and preteens, have perennially caused problems for pastors and play-directors. Well, maybe we can be a little more generous and just call them “memorable experiences”.

Unfortunately, this year, a.k.a. The Year That Covid Killed Christmas, there won’t be any opportunities to watch your kids have a live meltdown on stage at school or at church or at a recital or ANYWHERE. Thankfully, we still have plenty of ways to recreate moments like your preschool daughter flashing her underpants (repeatedly) at the entire church congregation (because fancy skirts can be so much fun to flip up and down). Or like when your usually sunny son stands front and center on stage with his arms crossed, scowling at the crowd and refusing to sing in spite of every other rehearsal going as smoothly as possible.

Remember Kevin McAllister’s rotten brother Buzz? He expertly (and blatantly) antagonizes his little brother during an angelic solo and then absolves himself of all of the blame after the entire show’s scenery comes crashing down around Kevin’s lit-up ears.

And there was story I reviewed last Christmas on this blog, The Shepherd, The Angel and Walter the Christmas Dog, where (spoiler alert) the entire choir loft ceiling came crashing down. There’s just too many variables in a live performance with unpaid and underage amateurs amid poorly anchored scenery for Christmas plays to go exactly as planned.

[Side note: When I was a youngster, I went with my mom to a Christmas concert at Derwent School and watched while my big brother was “operated on” with a carpenter’s saw behind a backlit curtain after a scene where he ate too much pie. I bawled my eyes out thinking that something had gone horribly amiss. But no, the play went exactly as planned and it did look like they killed him. And that’s why you shouldn’t eat too much pie at Christmas, especially if someone wants to try out some new tools.]

The title of Barbara Robinson’s classic book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever appears, at first blush, to be ironic. The Herdman kids, notorious for wrecking everything in their path, bully their way into all the lead parts for the church’s nativity play which were (in this story) traditionally held by the milder and meek of the Sunday School crowd. The initial attraction for the un-herded Herdmans, whose mother works double-shifts and has essentially given-up, is a rumored abundance of food at the church. Much to the chagrin of the kids who previously enjoyed a Herdman-Free-Zone at their Sunday School classes, the hungry Herdmans decide their omnipresence is called for, even here in the church where the oldest Herdman, Imogene, mutters unhappily that apparently “everything” is about Jesus. You can imagine how it all plays out: near disaster, followed by unforgettable redemption. That’s my kind of Christmas story. You can download it to your Kindle or listen to it on Audible or even watch the movie on YouTube featuring Loretta “Hotlips Houlihan” Swit of M.A.S.H. fame. You’re welcome.

And finally, for who those of you who agree with me that this is the best Christmas play ending ever (even if it is animated, Charlie Brown and Snoopy will always be real people to me), heeeeeeeeere’s Linus!