S02E04 — The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.
It’s been done once as a TV movie, then released in 2024 as a wildly successful theatrical release by director Dallas Jenkins. As a film about a group of misfit kids rejected (and accepted) by a local church as they crash their way into the yearly Christmas pageant, this book-to-film adaptation was close to many of our hearts.
We discuss what we loved most, how the 2024 film compared to the original book, and a few heartfelt Christmas memories along the way.
Final Verdicts
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie builds on the book’s humor and charm, adding heartfelt moments and more complexity to characters like Grace and Imogene. While the book keeps things short and sweet, the movie takes its time to show the Herdmans’ transformation and the deeper message behind the chaos.
Tim: The film was better
Donna: Split 50/50
Rebekah: The film was better
Josiah: The book was better
Full Episode Transcript
Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.
[00:00:00] Rebekah: Merry Christmas and welcome to the Book Is Better podcast. We are four people. We happen to be related. We’re in a family. And we talk about book to film adaptations. This is a clean podcast. And this episode is, you know, probably appropriate for anybody. We’re talking about a really charming story today called the best Christmas pageant ever.
We like to introduce ourselves though, before we get too deep into discussing the book and films that we talk about. So along with our introductions today, our fun fact is. If you were volunteering for a part in the Christmas pageant, which part would you want to play? And I’ll go first. My name is Rebecca.
I am the daughter slash sister of the family. And I think that I would want to play the part of the angel of the Lord because it’s the only part that gets to speak on stage and tells people what to do and think. And that sounds like something I would enjoy.
[00:01:03] Tim: Oh my. I think I would. Just for just for uniqueness, I would like to play the part of Herod,
[00:01:13] Rebekah: the one that’s not actually in the traditional Christmas.
[00:01:15] Tim: He’s just the voice. Just, you know,
[00:01:17] Rebekah: but the herd bins want to beat you up
[00:01:19] Tim: back there. Yeah.
[00:01:20] Rebekah: Nice. What’s your nameless podcaster?
[00:01:24] Tim: Nameless podcaster. You can’t
[00:01:26] Rebekah: name. Oh, no.
[00:01:28] Tim: You can just call me the dad. Okay. His name is my name is Tim. You can call me the dad
[00:01:35] Rebekah: that will allow it either way. Honestly, I’m
[00:01:37] Donna: You My name is Donna.
I’m the mom slash wife of this living genealogy. And, wow, I don’t know that, I’m fine to have a part that does not speak, hmm, because I get so emotional and I think taking the whole thing in would be a very emotional experience. So maybe, uh, if we were doing a more progressive version, I could be a female shepherd.
Oh. I could be a shepherdess. There were probably, there were shepherdesses. Oh, yeah. Is, shep, shepherdesses. Shepherdi. Shepherdi doesn’t sound right. Shepherdessi.
[00:02:19] Josiah: I am Josiah, the brother son of this brood.
[00:02:27] Rebekah: The plot twist is that I said on the last episode that you were going to get kicked out of the podcast, but we didn’t actually kick you out.
[00:02:32] Josiah: Well, it has been a while. I got kicked out and then you couldn’t do another episode, so you brought me back in.
[00:02:37] Rebekah: Yes, you were such a, an important part of the whole process.
[00:02:41] Josiah: Integral. If I run a Christmas pageant, can I be the director?
[00:02:44] Rebekah: I guess, yeah.
[00:02:46] Josiah: There’s a part to play. But you’ll
[00:02:47] Rebekah: probably have to break the legs of the person who’s currently directing based on this movie.
[00:02:51] Josiah: Hmm. I’ll leave that up to God. If he wants me to be director, he can do that.
[00:02:58] Rebekah: Oh, I love it. Well, uh, before we get started, I also would like to say if you are interested in, uh, you know, a little Christmas cheer for us, your favorite podcast hosts, obviously, uh, there are two easy ways to do that. Both of which can be done for free.
They just take a moment of your time. Uh, first of all, reviews are a huge, um, boost to us. Every time we get one, we share them in our private discord. channel and we all get really excited. And so if you are interested in at all in leaving a review, uh, audible and apple podcasts make that pretty easy, but there are other ways you can also leave us reviews that I can use on our website.
If you join our discord server, which is free to everyone. The other way that you can just, you know, gift us something this Christmas would be to follow us on Patreon. You can become a free subscriber and see our updates there. Uh, we’ll be talking more about merch we release and different things like that.
If you would like to subscribe to a paid tier, there are a couple of options for extra bonus content and time with us and discounts on merch and fun things. And so, That would be just a lovely way for you to spread some Christmas cheer to our family. And without further ado, adieu. Sorry, I did take French.
Josiah, would you like to tell us what the best Christmas pageant ever is actually about?
[00:04:24] Josiah: Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the main characters in the story of Jesus’s birth were dirty, socially rejected, and not your immediate idea of the perfect vessels for the word of God made flesh.
Well, other than the actual Christmas story, you can experience this in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a 2024 film adapted from the 1972 novella of the same name. It’s a story of the Herdmans, the worst kids who ever lived, and their participation in a traditional Christmas pageant. At a church that becomes anything but traditional, a church kid lets slip to one of the herdmans that he doesn’t care about having his dessert stolen by the herdman boy because he gets all the food he could want at church.
What do the herdmans do? They go to church for the first time. Imogene, the oldest herdman, demands that she be cast as Mary. And that our siblings take all the other major roles. Terrified of what the Herdmans will do to them if they refuse. The kids at the church don’t speak up and allow it to happen.
But as these outsiders learn about Jesus birth and navigate the difficulties of selfish church ladies, they turn this traditional pageant where nothing ever changes. into a far more meaningful occasion than anyone expected.
[00:05:49] Rebekah: Um, so as we get into major differences here, it’s a really short novella. The movie is, you know, normal.
I think it’s like an hour and 20 something minutes. But, uh, I didn’t divide these into plot, timeline, character, and setting. I thought we would just kind of talk through them as we get there. And I will clarify, we are reviewing the differences between the 2024 film and the novella. However, there is a 1982 made for TV movie.
We did also watch it. It’s cute. We may mention it. It follows the plot of the book pretty closely.
[00:06:25] Josiah: It was also written by The lady who wrote the original novella, the, the TV film was, so this new 2024 best Christmas pageant ever was written by three new people directed by Dallas Jenkins. I don’t think that the original author had a huge hand in the production.
Gotcha. I do believe she’s still alive and she. Must have given them her blessing, but
[00:06:53] Donna: there’s a stark difference between the audiobooks narrator Actress Elaine Stritch and the movie’s narrator who was Lauren Graham Yes of Gilmore Girls fame Elaine Stritch has like a sassier, gruff voice, and as soon as I started listening to the book, I immediately heard this and thought, Oh, that, it’s so distinctive, and I, I have wrecked my brain, I didn’t want to look up where I heard it, I was trying to remember, and then I finally gave in and looked up today, and she played, The mom of Alex, uh, Alec Baldwin’s mom on 30 rock.
And, uh, did I say Alex Baldwin? That’s good. Mom of
[00:07:39] Josiah: Alex.
[00:07:44] Donna: Immediately my brain went, Oh, connect. And I could hear the little kind of, she is, she’s sassier. Her voice is a little more gruff, but I will say, I thought that Lauren Graham’s voice. The tone of her voice, I thought that the, the way she narrated in the book, it was more closely, or the narrate in the movie, that was more closely associated in my mind with what Beth would be as an adult.
[00:08:11] Rebekah: I did think that the narrator of the audio book, as soon as she started talking, I thought, Oh, my 80 year old grandmother is telling me this story.
[00:08:20] Tim: And I kind of liked it. Well, throughout the film, Beth, the narrator, prays in her room at night as she sees her mother struggling to handle the pressure of the Christmas pageant.
However, this is not in the book, but I thought it was a good touch in the film.
[00:08:35] Rebekah: Oh, I loved it. That you see
[00:08:36] Tim: Beth continually praying, you know, I pray that You’ll remove the herdman’s or you’ll, you’ll make me invisible. And then when mom’s doing the pageant that, you know, they won’t mess it up and yeah, very be
[00:08:50] Josiah: careful what you wish for.
Irony.
[00:08:53] Rebekah: Yes. I do also love that kind of all of the prayer and many other scenes kind of show you the truth of how kids pray, like the things that they want. Because. You know, she’s praying to get rid of the Herdmans, her brother’s the one that said in front of the whole church that his favorite thing about Sunday school was having no Herdmans there, like, yeah, but also like, it’s just so cute, like how they’re, it’s kind of realistic, like kids pray for things that may be a little selfish or a little out there.
[00:09:23] Tim: She said, I know this is a selfish prayer, but this is what I want.
[00:09:28] Donna: If you wanted to get into kind of a deeper character study, it’s a great testament of her, of their parents teaching them. You could, you have to be honest about things and honesty is not always pretty, but I thought that the parents acting the way he wrote the parents in the movie.
Did correspond with the way Beth and Charlie were. Yeah. Their parents were quirky and they had, you know, they had serious moments, they had funny moments. But, I could see where those two people could have raised those two kids. And to me, things like that are important. In the book, Mom Grace gets saddled with directing the pageant when Mrs.
Armstrong gets injured. In the film, there’s a scene where Grace and Beth come across Mrs. Armstrong as she’s been put in an ambulance and we see Grace volunteer to direct the pageant to prove that she can take responsibility. I loved this scene. It showed you that Beth wasn’t, uh, it showed you that Beth wasn’t, uh, One, it showed that compassion for her mom and that you could, she was taking in everything, but it also showed that the mom was not the perfect person.
She had self doubt, she You know, was, could she really do something like that? But then as soon as Alice’s mother was like, you can bring the cookies, those store bought ones, those store bought ones, they were so good. I loved that because then immediately you saw fire in her eyes. Well, I can do this. How dare you?
[00:11:09] Josiah: One thing. That must have been purposefully done in her character for imaging. I wanna say for the daughter, Beth, compared to the book, the film gave them all human motivations for things. Mm-hmm . That weren’t directly rooted in faith, which I think, you know, is how normal people are. You know, even when we have our faith and we’re strong in our faith, we have other things that, for better or for worse, are influencing our decisions.
So, like, she took on the pageant, not necessarily because she felt convicted to, but it started out as pettiness. Yeah. And I’ll get to what Imogene does later, which I think is interesting, but I think that’s part of a pattern that further humanizes the film characters from the perfectly acceptable, but a little more two dimensional characters in the book.
[00:12:06] Rebekah: One of the things that I loved about the film that kind of adds to that Not just two dimensional thing was that Beth of the book just kind of talks briefly about how her mom tried to do a good job Directing the pageant whatever but in the film, it’s way more pronounced Beth goes out of her way to support grace her mother She wants her to succeed.
She prays for her. She chases after Imogene when things go wrong. Like she tries to convince Alice, the annoying girl, that she should be kinder. Like I loved that the daughter character just became so much more like loyal to her mom. And I felt you just like felt that relationship. And it was it was really relatable.
[00:12:51] Josiah: I think that, that hits on a really good point of going from book to film. In a book, I think that if a character is a narrator, you feel like they’re an important character. But in film, there isn’t really a narrator character, always. There is in this, and it is Beth. But I feel like the character has to have more agency in film, has to make decisions in a film.
More than they do in a book because in the book like you’re in their head Honestly, I don’t know if they really need to make that many decisions because you’re just you’re putting Your own brain into their head, and that makes them an important character. But in a film, you see another actor playing this part, and you’re not having it narrated to you so much as the director is communicating the story to you through the language of film.
So, I think it was a smart decision to give characters like Beth more choices and more agency throughout the narrative in order to achieve that. A similar feeling to the book where you’re like, Oh, she’s so important. I love being in her head in the movie. You’re like, Oh, I love her. I’m not really in her head, but I love her for these other reasons.
[00:14:08] Tim: Yeah. Isn’t it interesting though, that we had in, in this case where the book is all from the perspective of Beth. And we’ve, we’ve done other, other book to film adaptations where it’s a first person book, you know, this is what I think, this is what I think, and on and on, and somehow the director has to take it out of that, and you never have a narrator.
In this one, it seems like he was able to flesh out the characters, so they had agency and things like that, and yet, We still had a narrator that told us things that we needed to know because they’re things that they were thinking. Um, and it helped. I think it helped tell the story. I think it’s a little different than some of the other things that That we’ve, uh, done.
[00:14:55] Rebekah: I also thought it was interesting when we watched the TV movie, Josiah, you’re the one that pointed out, they don’t use a narrator in that version.
[00:15:03] Tim: And I think they lost something.
[00:15:04] Rebekah: It, it did kind of feel, you didn’t feel as connected to it somehow. So it didn’t feel like a friend was telling you a story.
[00:15:12] Josiah: I thought that it was probably in isolation a good choice to take out the narrator, but no, it was clearly a TV movie that did not have the budget to hire a good director or cinematographer.
Oh, and there’s an added scene in the film where the parents are having a prayer meeting inside and the children are outside. They’re having a little snowball fight. Several lives flash before eyes as the Herdmans come out and they make good on their commitment. On being the worst kids who ever lived they start pelting the kids With snowballs and it’s, uh, you know, like the, the afterlife is coming up from under their feet to take these kids, but fortunately the other children were saved just in time as the prayer session ends.
I thought it
[00:16:03] Tim: was wonderful that they, they use this as an opportunity after the prayer meeting, the kids were going to do practice. So they brought them in and they look. In various levels of being disheveled, you know,
[00:16:16] Rebekah: I’m just saying they look like they have just gone through like the first part of the hunger games.
[00:16:21] Tim: Yes. But I thought it was a great opportunity for, for fun and laughter.
[00:16:27] Rebekah: It reminded me of the snowball scene from a movie, but I’m trying to, maybe it’s from elf where like he’s throwing snowballs at kids and like knocking them out. That’s kind of what it was like when the Herdmans were like pelting their snowballs.
It wasn’t just like, ha ha, I’m throwing a snowball. It was like, I am throwing an ice pellet at your face. Like, you know, it’s much more violent.
[00:16:47] Josiah: One thing I think is missing from this movie, and maybe even the TV movie, and maybe, I’ve seen two productions of the stage play put on, and both times they had two or three scenes of fight choreography.
Between the herdman’s where they just started fighting each other and it was really cool watching it on stage I feel like they didn’t really beat each other up in the films.
[00:17:16] Rebekah: You saw a little bit. I would say that, like, I think we saw some of it throughout. And at the beginning, where they’re showing you, you know, that the herdmen smoke cigars, even the girls, and and they burn stuff down, like, they kind of were fighting each other, but it wasn’t It wasn’t like extended fight scenes like that.
[00:17:32] Tim: They narrated some of that by saying, you know, they would come to, they would come to school with very, you know, various bruises and things according to who’d gotten beaten up, you know, different bruises. So they didn’t show it
[00:17:46] Josiah: as much as they said it. So I feel like that’s in the book. I know that there’s at least The opportunity for it in the play.
It was sad to not see it on screen. I suppose violence might be an extra step too far for some families. You know, maybe the kids might think, Oh, that’s so cool that they’re being violent.
[00:18:09] Rebekah: You know what actually is one of the weirdest parts of this for me? I, so I’m in a couple of groups online, partly just because I was curious, um, of what people say, but I’m in a couple of groups online where Christian parents will ask questions about like movies and books for their kids and things like that.
And these are, remember, these are people specifically in like Christian communities asking about what to expose their kids to or not, or sharing their experiences with stuff. And it was so funny cause there was literally a mom that asked the question in one of the groups recently. Oh, I saw the trailer for Best Christmas Pageant Ever, but we really avoid letting our kids see any movies where the kids behave badly.
So what do you guys think? And I thought, that’s, that’s what you got from that trailer? Was that the kids behave badly and that you should not have your children see this movie because of that? And I mean, all the comments were like. Um, it’s actually really redemptive. Like, it’s a good thing. Well, the
[00:19:06] Tim: trailer does, the trailer does say, you know, they’re the worst kids ever.
It shows them in the snowball fight. That’s, that’s in the previews, most of the previews at least. Um, and you know, you’ve got them burning down, you know, there’s a fire and they’re sitting there watching things burn. So I can understand a person saying this may have those kinds of things in it. I’m not sure that.
That I would agree that parents should. Oh, no, it’s got kids being not good. She said naughty like kids be. I don’t let my children see movies
[00:19:41] Rebekah: where kids are naughty.
[00:19:42] Tim: Yeah, I think I think that may be a little ostrich like. Yeah.
[00:19:49] Rebekah: I do understand, like I understand, I don’t want, I understand not wanting your children to see things where it’s like glorified when kids are quote unquote acting badly, you know, but it was kind of a funny question.
[00:20:00] Donna: But when the whole point of the film is to show you, we don’t always know everybody’s story. We don’t always know where people come from. We make assumptions because what we see on the outside. And then you get to the end of the movie and there is the redemption of. Oh, wow. My church going mentality for a period of time, these people realized they were, they, they saw, oh, what I just thought was so horrible.
You can’t talk about Mary being pregnant. Yeah, you can’t talk about and realizing, wait, to sanitize scripture is just as bad to me. As to try to look at it and make it vicious and evil, right? Because scripture is about real people that lived real lives and there’s a lot of ugliness in there, but then that is counteracted by the perfect redemption in the forgiveness of God.
And so I found that seeing it all the way to the end brought all that together and you realize that the good church people really weren’t any better than the herdman’s.
[00:21:18] Rebekah: Yeah. Acting out. Well, and again, that question of, you know, should I let my kids see this movie because kids are naughty and it kind of sounds like the same thing as Alice having her little notebook and being like, Oh, the Herdman said that Mary was pregnant, which is so offensive.
My mother said, and she, you know, it’s so. Strange, but
[00:21:40] Josiah: in the absence of violence amongst the herd men’s, I think the snowball scene adds some roughness to them without it being punchy punchy, but it’s still like, you know, scary for the kids and the scene
[00:21:54] Donna: of her when imaging raises that hand up and they all raise their hands up with those snowballs and you just know the kids are going to get it and you, you can’t.
You can’t not laugh at it, but at the same time be like, Oh, no, this little kids are dead. They’re going to get killed with those ice balls, you know, um, I, I did think that was a very important part to, to contrast the, the little church kids in the Herdman’s. I thought that was really useful.
[00:22:24] Tim: There’s a, there’s a part in that section that I find strange that the adults were inside having a prayer meeting.
So the kids were just free range while they’re doing prayer meeting.
[00:22:40] Rebekah: Yes. Kids don’t pray except at night in their bed.
[00:22:44] Tim: I just found that interesting that there wasn’t even an adult outside kind of watching over them. Okay. There’s nothing for the kids during this time, but it was just, it was a strange to me.
It’s, um, not really the reality of. Of church world. I mean, our kids do run out once, once we’re done with whatever we’re doing and play with each other while we’re talking. But that’s a little different than saying, okay, we’re going to be occupied. So you guys just occupy yourselves.
[00:23:09] Rebekah: I don’t know. Maybe your church world.
There’s a lot of churches where kids are never in service with their parents and not invited to prayer meetings and stuff like that.
[00:23:16] Josiah: I’m also thinking like dad, whenever we had Wednesday night services, like what about when we used to have dinner? What about after the kids were done with dinner, for They started doing because we were, we
[00:23:28] Tim: were talking and, and, and fellowshipping and they did other, other kinds of things.
Yeah, I can see that. It just seemed almost like a planned thing, you know, on Wednesday nights, the adults are going to do prayer meeting and the kids are going to wander around until we have something for them to do.
[00:23:46] Josiah: Maybe that’s another layer of their hypocrisy. It’s interesting.
[00:23:49] Tim: Although, you know, though, The book nor the movies is very specific about a time, um, it did take place at another time because we know that Beth is at least an adult with children if she’s not an older adult, you know, like you’re like your mom was saying, maybe she’s supposed to be an older adult.
So we know that it’s at a different time.
[00:24:16] Rebekah: I loved, we watched an interview with a guy who talked to Dallas, the director, uh, about the movie. And I loved that he said the terminology they used was that this happened back, or this happened then, like not that, not now, but then, and then in the, in the part where Beth’s talking at the end, it’s like, that’s now.
But he said that he didn’t want it, just like the book, he didn’t want it to be specific to a decade, but he wanted it to feel nostalgic. It was then, it was nostalgia, it was in the past. But it wasn’t any specific time, which I like the
[00:24:52] Tim: fact that one of the reviewers we listened to reviewing the movie said he liked the fact that it was kind of ambiguous about the time so you could watch it with your family for years and years to come and never say, Oh, well, that was from this time.
Yeah,
[00:25:08] Rebekah: well, and it makes it it’s supposed to make it feel less dated in general. But
[00:25:12] Tim: yeah, I agree in the 2024 Yeah. They add more direct interactions between Grace, the mother who is directing, and Imogene, the herdman who is playing Mary. They stand in front of the portrait of Mary, and they have a conversation there.
Grace briefly, uh, gives in to the nagging church ladies a bit and begins to talk to Imogene about the possibility of her quitting if she feels overwhelmed. Um, she later regrets that. Good. Grace also shares the real meaning of the name Emmanuel with Imogene because she thought, well, why did they name the, name the baby after our town or, you know.
[00:25:55] Rebekah: Yeah, because they live in Emmanuel.
[00:25:56] Tim: Yeah. And what,
[00:25:58] Josiah: in the movie. I don’t think they do in the
[00:25:59] Tim: book though.
[00:26:00] Rebekah: Oh, okay. I don’t know.
[00:26:02] Tim: I like the fact that, that Dallas chooses to, to expand several, several places in the story to give it a little, little more humanity. Um, a little deeper motivation, perhaps.
[00:26:17] Donna: In the book, Bob, who’s Beth’s father, Tells the family that the Herdmans are on a list of families to deliver Christmas ham to as part of the church’s annual charity drive.
This scene in the film includes Beth’s entire family driving with their father to deliver the Christmas ham to the Herdmans. I love this scene. The dad knew all along and it gives you a little insight into the dad’s wisdom because he is kind of The secondary, he’s a little funny guy, but funny man, but at the same time, he doesn’t come across as, Oh, I’m just a dad and I don’t do anything but work.
You know, I’m not, you know, I’m not the stupid adult. I love the scene. He, he tells them, yeah, I want you to go with me. None of them even knew he did it. And then they drive to the house, and that whole scene is just, um, amazing to me. And I see, you know, it’s the beginning, it’s a big turning point for Grace.
Yeah. And, and it’s a huge point for Beth as well. And to see them fighting over that ham and imaging, I mean, I could cry right now talking about it. Yeah. It’s super emotional when I did. Is that the point where they, he said, is your mom home? And she said, no, it’s daylight.
[00:27:41] Rebekah: Yeah.
[00:27:42] Donna: So
[00:27:43] Rebekah: also I think Josh pointed out that there’s some like interesting commentary on.
Is the mom actually there at all, or does, do the children just like learn to say that she’s never home during the day, like during daylight hours or whatever? Like, are the kids lying, or is that just the sad state that like their mom’s not there during the day? Like, or the, I don’t know, I just thought that was a really interesting thing to ponder.
In the movie and in the book, we don’t see the mom, but she does show up in the film from 1983.
[00:28:16] Josiah: Yeah, so
[00:28:18] Rebekah: she actually shows up at the pageant in the film, uh, like the TV movie, but not in the Dallas Jenkins version. And we never meet her in the book.
[00:28:26] Josiah: And that was actually very sweet at the TV movie.
[00:28:29] Rebekah: I did not hate it.
[00:28:30] Tim: But I thought that it was very interesting that at the end, um, Grace says, Oh, I wish Mrs. Herdman could have been here to see them. So she didn’t even know. Mrs. Herdman had come. The audience does because
[00:28:46] Rebekah: in the TV movie,
[00:28:47] Tim: in the TV movie, because she’s, she says, you know, yes, I’m Mrs. Herdman, you know, somebody asks her.
And so we know that the audience knows that.
[00:28:56] Donna: And I also think this was the most, the most predictable outcome would have been at the end of the movie. The mom shows up and, oh, the dad even heard about it, the estranged dad, and that would have been predictable. That would have been too much of a bow to wrap up.
Where they all come and they see their children and they’re all immediately changed. I’m so glad he didn’t do that. Because real life Is very seldom that neat and tidy. Yeah.
[00:29:25] Josiah: Now, don’t go talking about real life. You’ll get these other two to rebel. They hate real life. Shut up. Ha,
[00:29:30] Musical Intro: ha,
[00:29:31] Donna: ha,
[00:29:32] Josiah: ha. Oh. I don’t remember in the book where Beth’s father brings a Christmas ham to the Herdmans.
I think
[00:29:42] Donna: he mentions it. It’s just remarked that, that
[00:29:45] Rebekah: they’re on his list or something. He shares with them that the Herdmans are one of the families that he always delivers a ham to because he’s one of the guys from the church. That delivers hams to families.
[00:29:54] Josiah: Um, I also think that mom, you said he’s not like a stupid guy.
I think he is kind of a stupid guy in the book. And I think they think he’s
[00:30:02] Donna: a little more. Yeah, I think he’s a little more comedy relief. Maybe he was
[00:30:07] Josiah: less of that cliche, that kind of harmful cliche of the doofus dad. So I enjoyed how they altered Bob in the movie. I mean. In the book and in the play, Grace is directing the play, is directing the pageant, and Bob’s like, Does that mean I have to come?
Yeah. It’s like, support your spouse. It’s an hour. Yeah. Bring a newspaper and sit in the back. I don’t know, but like, do you hate your wife? Do you hate your kids? Is it really that big a deal?
[00:30:42] Tim: I wonder if part of that was simply to Emphasize or you know, reemphasize that the pageant had been the same every year for such a long time.
It’s like, why do I go? ’cause there’s nothing in it that’s different. The last did make a
[00:31:01] Rebekah: point, the last 20 times I’ve seen it. That’s true. They did make a point that nothing ever changes.
[00:31:04] Josiah: That’s true. I guess I wish that it wouldn’t have been the dad. Right. Who brought that up. Sure. But that is very true.
Right.
[00:31:10] Donna: And I have a feeling, if I had to guess that Dallas wanted to make sure he portrayed. Yeah, because the dad’s not completely the most pivotal character, but he still needs to be a strong character and an important part of their family in
[00:31:26] Tim: the movie. He’s still not all that interested in seeing it until his wife is directing it.
And then apparently he has a job, um, to do the sound for it. So sound and like
[00:31:37] Josiah: he’s supportive in the movie. Yes, and a little bit of a flaw in my opinion and maybe why I don’t believe he does the ham in the book Is why didn’t he speak up sooner if he had this in his back pocket about hey, the Herdman’s don’t have any food.
[00:31:54] Rebekah: Well, I think that that’s how your dad, our dad, would have reacted if you were like my favorite thing about Sunday school is that little Bobby’s not there. And if your dad, if our dad knew that little Bobby’s family literally didn’t have enough money to buy Christmas dinner, he would have been like, hey, TJ, you were a kid.
TJ, what is, what are you talking about? Don’t say that. Like, these, you don’t understand what they are going through. Like, you shouldn’t say that. That’s unkind.
[00:32:19] Tim: Go with me to deliver these things. Would he have said it weeks? No,
[00:32:23] Rebekah: he would have said that to you immediately. That’s what I’m saying. You grew up with a dad.
I know that that is weird. I’m agreeing with you. Okay. I’m saying we grew up with a dad who would have immediately called that out.
[00:32:32] Tim: It’s funny that even when you guys are agreeing, you’re not sure that you’re agreeing with each other.
[00:32:37] Rebekah: I like that.
[00:32:38] Tim: I love you too. We’re
[00:32:39] Josiah: brought up. It’s like
[00:32:40] Rebekah: the way mom just add layers and layers.
It’s like the way our parents fight. Our mom and dad only ever fight about who gets to love the other and sacrifice more for the other. That’s most of their arguments is, no, I wanna do what you wanna do. Let me do what you wanna do. And they’re like, no, I want you to do what you wanna do. And it’s, it’s very funny,
[00:32:57] Josiah: Hey, but about best Christmas passion ever.
We read. In the book, how the Herdmans were inspired to learn more about Herod and other history surrounding the Christmas story after hearing about it at the first rehearsal.
[00:33:09] Rebekah: In the
[00:33:10] Josiah: book and movie, the Herdmans ask how to get a library card. In the film, Beth joins the Herdmans at the library, helps them find several Bibles and other books.
The movie actually changed one of my favorite lines from the book from the library, and it was something like maybe Beth was commentating, saying that she, she thought she had seen everything, but she might as well retire now because she’s never, it’s never going to get crazier than Imogene Herdman asking for a library card to read about Jesus.
Yes.
[00:33:44] Rebekah: I loved the library scenes. I thought
[00:33:46] Tim: the library scenes were very fun.
[00:33:50] Rebekah: One of the cool things about the way the story unfolds is that when the kids hear the story of Jesus birth and all the events surrounding it for the first time, they are in awe. They’re amazed. It’s so incredible to them. There’s so much that like is unimaginable.
And then I love that like they got upset about Herod and it’s, they wanted Herod to be in the place so they could beat him up. And like they wanted to have him killed. Like, and it was And
[00:34:17] Tim: the innkeeper should be done something with. He made them go to the barn.
[00:34:21] Rebekah: Right. And it’s It’s so funny because they recognize these things that we do often become immune to some, in some ways, like, yeah,
[00:34:29] Tim: there was just no room for them in the end.
And we just kind of walked past that statement from the
[00:34:33] Rebekah: Christmas story. There was no room for them in the end. And then you like humanize it and you’re like, wait a minute, wait a minute. This guy saw a pregnant woman that’s clearly about to burst and couldn’t figure it out. Like, you know, and so I do, it was really interesting to see the herdman’s kind of like process that.
And then Bob, the dad figure. Is like, wouldn’t you be amazed if you, you know, well, cause the mom, you know, Grace says something about, well, they’ve just heard it for the first time and he’s like, well, I guess I would be pretty amazed, you know? So I love that. Um, in that library scene where they’re like studying all this, they want to know more about Harrod.
They want to know more about what happens imaging in the, in the movie gives a compelling speech. She motivates her siblings. We have to study this. We have to keep learning about it. Um, because it was the way that they could do their best to play their roles in the pageant. Because in the film, there’s more, um, pronounced stuff about how Imogene had always, like, imagined being on stage and, like, acting and this was, like, an important thing for her.
And I, I thought the speech was really good. It was very inspiring and it, like, showed you The growth that she had already started to experience just after literally going to church once and then being in one rehearsal for the play, the story of Jesus had already started to change her, which I thought was really cool.
Um, and like we said, the film or the book doesn’t mention or the book doesn’t like walk you through the library scene because we assume Beth was not there. And Imogene doesn’t give a speech in the, in the book that I can recall.
[00:36:04] Josiah: No, I think the book implies that Imogene went by herself to get a Bible and bring it home or something like that.
Oh, got it. Um, I mentioned earlier Imogene also had kind of a Less religious reason at first for doing what she was doing that kind of transformed over time and that’s yeah kind of what I was talking about with the Spotlight being a star being a performer. Um, it seems like what drew her into really caring about the pageant at first was Getting to pretend like she’s someone else.
Yeah, the, the movie did a
[00:36:45] Tim: good job, I think, of, of helping, helping you see her progress. Because I agree, her first motivation was, I want to be the star, I want to be the superhero, because they liked, in the film, they liked movies. Um, in the TV version, they, they watch TV, they said, so it’s like on TV when they talked about what is a pageant and all of that.
But the book says they went to movies, right? They snuck into movies.
[00:37:17] Josiah: Yeah, yeah,
[00:37:17] Tim: yeah. Yeah. And so they, those were important things and they wanted, she wanted to be important and she wanted to be noticed. So it’s, it’s beautiful, I think, to, to watch transformation. You know, we need to learn this stuff because at the library scene, the rest of the siblings are starting to get antsy and start being who they normally are.
And she brings them back to, this is important for us to do. And then when they, Grab hold of how important it is we begin to see that, you know, as, as they say, well, why doesn’t somebody take care of, you know, Herod? What should we do about the innkeeper? And, you know, surely Herod gets his come up and Cynthia and those kinds of things.
So,
[00:38:02] Donna: and, and this is a great development considering that at the beginning of imaging’s Experience in the church. She says, I want to be Mary and my brother wants to be Joe. Yeah. So looking at how she goes through that and and finds this respect. But it also reminded me that the pictures that we have and the things.
The churchy looking things that we have in the church are maybe not as, maybe they’re a little deceiving unintentionally, but when you think of that picture of Mary on the wall, holding the baby. She looks perfect.
[00:38:43] Josiah: It’s all made
[00:38:44] Donna: up.
[00:38:44] Josiah: It’s like we are faces. Yes,
[00:38:47] Donna: and imaging is looking at it now. It was useful.
It was a useful tool because Grace could say to her merit, but Mary was tough and she could make the compare and start begin. It was a discussion starter. Grace used it. But if you really think about it, what do we have? We have White Jesus with wavy kind of perfectly laid hair down on his shoulders and he looks serene and we have
[00:39:20] Josiah: a beard.
[00:39:20] Donna: Yeah. And is, yeah, everything’s everything’s groomed well. And we have, I mean, I don’t want to go too deep into this, but we have pictures of the ark with the cute little animals walking in pairs on 20 pairs
[00:39:37] Tim: of animals onto a boat
[00:39:39] Donna: where they shut the door and everybody else on the planet does. Yeah, I mean, it’s like.
And I think we could learn there’s a lot of things we can learn from think from reminders like this that if we want to depict. Who God is, then we really need to step back and look at what we’re depicting and how we’re depicting it because it’s, it’s a lot different. Um, it’s way too deep to get into, but, well, it’s not, uh, necessarily a difference, but it’s a huge plot point that we wanted to bring up at this point at, at this point in the, in the, in our, our progression, I guess.
But between the library scene and pageant day, there’s an important scene that is in the book and the film where one of the nosy church ladies calls the fire department because she claims to have seen smoke coming from the lady’s bathroom. As it turns out, there was not only no fire, now it says no, nor smoking herdmans.
I thought Imogene She said,
[00:40:48] Tim: yeah, I was smoking a cigar. She said, yes, I was.
[00:40:52] Rebekah: Okay. I missed that part.
[00:40:53] Donna: Um, but that’s okay. But there was, there was not only no fire in the bathroom, but the church evacuation meant that one of the desserts actually did burn while the fireman cleared the building. And this is like a huge turning point in the story.
So it appears in both book and film. This is a huge pivot point because you see. What assumption gets you and the people are so hungry and determined they’re going to prove the Hardman’s are bad and they need to be gotten rid of.
[00:41:29] Rebekah: And they weren’t at this point, they weren’t just trying to get rid of them from the play.
These women were literally like, why are we letting them here in our church? Like, Oh, yeah.
[00:41:39] Josiah: They were scribbling on Bibles, Rebecca, and stealing money from the offering plate. Yes. Yeah.
[00:41:45] Rebekah: I mean, I’m not saying those things are good or that they shouldn’t be correct, but it is very sad. I think it’s sad because as we’ve discussed this week, I, I, I’m not going to say I’ve known people exactly like that.
I think these were caricatures of annoying, you know, mean church ladies. But, I think that I know people who fit the non characterized version of that person, and so it’s hard to see people that are like, you know, more content to try and get kids out of the church, rather than saying, how can we like lead them in a good direction because this is clearly the best place for them to be, rather than them being Home alone with no parents most of the time, like without food to eat or clean clothes to wear and things like that.
So,
[00:42:34] Tim: yeah, I think the whole point of, of the story is how easy it is for people in the church to whom a lot of these things are familiar. To begin to forget what’s really, really important.
[00:42:49] Rebekah: Well, I mean, I do this a couple of Sundays ago, there were two kids that I had never seen before standing in front of me in worship and our church gets really loud and rowdy and it’s wonderful and fun.
And for whatever reason, one of the kids was talking to his friend or his brother, whomever it was, and he was talking loudly. So every time the music came down, it’s like, you get down to this really tender part. Oh, and the kids like, And then I thought that, and he was like right in front of me and I was like, what are you doing?
And so even I, like who was offended by this in the movie, had that thought in my head. But in my head, it was more like, okay, who can like help teach this child that it’s not really appropriate to do that? Not, oh, you need to get rid of this kid from the church because he did it
[00:43:32] Josiah: like them. Oh,
[00:43:33] Donna: shut
[00:43:33] Josiah: up. So,
[00:43:35] Donna: so true confession time when, when I was young little, like.
Elementary school preschool. Um, we I would sometimes go to church with my grandmother. Mom and dad did not go to church on a regular basis, but mom would go on some Sundays and play the piano for this little little church that that our family attended. So when I would go with her. And my grandmother and my brother was there when mom would play the piano.
I had two options. I could sit on the front pew and not speak, or I could sit on the bench with her. And the understanding was if I sat on the bench with her, that was because I had tried to sit on the pew and I spoke. And that meant my life would be negatively changed by the end of that day. I thought you were going to say it would be ended.
Well, she, she wanted to keep me alive. But I, so I grew up in a very strict understanding of the way you should be. So as I got older, That translated into similar to what you described. I had to intentionally let God remind me, you don’t know what’s going on in everybody’s life right now in this, in this room.
I made my, I disciplined myself to stop whatever was, to stop whatever I was doing, listening, singing or whatever. Stop and pray briefly. Because you’re right. It’s so easy to get so wrapped up in what’s going on and you’re, you’re engaged and somebody throw a wrench in that and to be able to say, maybe they’re throwing the wrench because.
They should be engaged, but they don’t, they don’t want to be, they’re fighting against it. And I don’t know if that’s too weird to get in, you know, I don’t know if that’s clear enough to say. But it just made me look around at everybody and realize I wasn’t the only one standing in the room. And to understand that, and that’s life, that’s like at the store, that’s like at school.
That’s in my office place wherever it doesn’t have to just be in a church. How many times have we been in the store and we’ve seen different people act out in whatever way, whether it’s children or adults or whatever. And we just look at it and kind of are disgusted by it. When we don’t know the story, we don’t know where they came from.
We don’t know what went on in the car before they got to the store. And so, I mean, this was another great reminder to me that I don’t know everybody’s life. And I need to not judge on exactly what I see in the moment, but realize there’s a bigger picture. It was, this was very impactful for me. This movie, the movie as a whole was, but this, this scene was as well because it was, it was vicious to watch all of them just attack the children and know that Imogene and the kids were right around the back of the fire truck and, and could hear it all.
Yeah. When they actually that time, they actually weren’t guilty. Yeah.
[00:46:52] Tim: The book describes the Herdman’s being late for the day of the pageant. The film takes it a step farther showing the Herdman’s being so hurt by the actions of the adults responding to the fire that they had. In fact, decided not to participate any longer.
In the movie, Beth rushes to the Herdman’s house on Christmas morning? Is that the day of the pageant? Yeah,
[00:47:18] Rebekah: because they like open gifts and stuff and she’s still in her pajamas. Okay, I was thinking that it’s the night of Christmas. Earlier
[00:47:24] Josiah: in the film, I think they said Christmas Eve, but then they have a scene where she walks down and there’s presents.
So maybe that’s why I was a little, I was a little confused,
[00:47:32] Tim: because I thought it was a Christmas Eve service. Okay. In the book, I think it’s Christmas Day. It is the day of the pageant that Beth rushes to the Herdman’s house, uh, to convince Imogene that they have to be there and that it’s how she can be brave like Mary.
The Herdmans still arrive late, but by, and by the time they get to the church, it’s unclear whether or not they’ll be there at all. Alice, the girl who’s always played Mary for a while, uh, the one who’s been keeping track of all the Herdman’s sins. She’s changed into Mary’s costume by this point. But then Imogene appears at the last minute.
[00:48:12] Rebekah: I’m just commenting, that little girl’s look of disgusting satisfaction when she got to put the Mary costume on, I was like, I don’t Advocate for any sort of violence, but I mean, like, there was a part of me that wanted to slap that kid.
[00:48:25] Tim: Wow. In other words, the actress portrayed that type of child very convincingly.
She did a great job,
[00:48:32] Rebekah: yes.
[00:48:33] Tim: Yes. Very convincingly. This whole, this whole scene, this, this section, was fascinating to me, the way they, the way they did it, it really, it humanized them, and up to this point, everybody thought, well, we can say we don’t like the Herdmans in front of the Herdmans, because they don’t really care, they’re too tough.
To care about that. And this showed, yes, they really do have feelings just because they’re rough people doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings and they don’t hear what you’re saying and things don’t hurt. And so I thought this was a very. Well done way to, uh, to show some of the things that the book had described in a little bit less detail.
I like the book better
[00:49:21] Josiah: in this, uh, regard. Oh, really? Yeah, it was great in the movie to give The Herdman’s, you know, they heard from the back of the firetruck that everyone was blaming them, so they didn’t want to do it anymore. Like, okay, that makes sense. It makes sense they run away. It makes sense they don’t want to do the pageant the next day.
It gives Beth something to do, which is generally a good thing in trying to convince Imogene to do it. She goes to their house, although Beth leaves her house. And she’s like, okay, parents, I’ll see you later or something like that. I was like, no, no, your parents need to know where you’re going, little girl.
In pajamas. Oh my goodness, on a bike.
[00:50:01] Rebekah: It blew my mind. I was like, why are you letting her go by herself? Okay.
[00:50:06] Tim: Yeah, different time it true truly a different time then it
[00:50:10] Josiah: was the
[00:50:11] Tim: then
[00:50:13] Josiah: So and I think that that spoke to a lot of great character arcs But my favorite thing about the original story is that you don’t know if everything is gonna turn out Okay Until the end of the pageant when it did, whereas in this, I feel like when the Herdmans arrive right before the pageant in the movie, that tells the audience, it’s all good.
And so it doesn’t feel like there’s the tension of the pageant. And I’ve always felt like the pageant, going well, despite everything, uh, is one of my favorite parts.
[00:50:55] Tim: I felt like the tension, the tension was there in the, in the film. And you really didn’t know if they were going to get there until all of the children were on stage, except for those that walk in.
Um, but the kids were on stage, they were getting ready to sing, and suddenly the little girl that had played Mary so often, she comes in with the choir costume on again,
[00:51:21] Rebekah: and
[00:51:21] Tim: that’s when you know that the Herdmans are there.
[00:51:24] Rebekah: Like I felt so vindicated for the Herdmans. The
[00:51:27] Tim: play has technically already started.
[00:51:29] Josiah: Yeah, okay, that’s true. I think that the movie does a thing that’s not bad, it’s just not my preference. That it focuses on the Herdman’s character arc, and I thought that how the book did it was more succinct in dealing with the Herdman’s character arc. And Beth and Grace and the church moms all at the same time, when the pageant was actually like weirdly good.
Yeah. But here’s a question, Rebecca. You had some problems watching this movie, um, having, since it dealt with Underprivileged kids being mistreated. Sure. But also, in a church setting. Have you, have you generally been able to enjoy stories that take place in church? I don’t. Can you think of any? No, um. Can you think of any that you’ve had a problem with that you haven’t been able to enjoy?
I can’t enjoy, personally, stories about plays. Interesting. Because most directors and writers. Even though they’re artistic people, I feel like they should know what they’re talking about. It’s like they’ve never done a real life play, so my suspension of disbelief is completely shattered. It’s
[00:52:54] Tim: difficult for me to watch, uh, watch films about pastors.
You know, because there’s a lot of Really? Did you talk to any real pastors when you were researching doing this? I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I
[00:53:10] Rebekah: do think I have that same feeling when I see a church scene in a film. I hate when I see it in a secular film. I’m like immediately. Okay, this is probably going to be portrayed as if it’s crazy people.
It’s either the pastor or the church. People are like. So selfless their mother, Teresa, or they’re so evil that you want them to be put to death. But in then in Christmas or Christmas in Christian film like things by Christian filmmakers It’s like grossly perfect. Like it’s so Unrelatable that it doesn’t feel like being in church doesn’t feel like any church I’ve ever been to
to like
be there because one of the most beautiful things about the Christmas story and Jesus and scripture is that It’s like rife with imperfection, you know what I mean?
And so, yeah, I don’t, maybe what you’re talking about is that same thing, like, I don’t, it’s hard for me to see stories about, about things happening in church.
[00:54:10] Josiah: So, along those same lines Uh, Christmas pageant is actually one of my favorite stories where theater is portrayed.
[00:54:19] Rebekah: Oh wow.
[00:54:19] Josiah: Um, at first, whenever I, the first time I saw it was 2021, a 2021, uh, Christmas time as a play.
And I remember thinking at the beginning, it’s like, oh my gosh, this is your rehearsal? You’re just like, having people volunteer for parts? That’s awful. And then it gets to the end of the play, and it’s like, oh, your pageant is awful. Oh. Which is kind of the point. And that’s kind of the point, and it makes perfect sense, and that’s, those were your expectations.
And all of that also spoke to the theme of the play. I think something that Isn’t a commonly stated theme is everyone treats this pageant like it’s the most important thing in the world. It’s baby, easy, simple, stupid.
[00:55:05] Rebekah: Yeah.
[00:55:06] Josiah: It’s not, no one has lines except for an adult and the angel of the Lord.
[00:55:10] Rebekah: Our dad, who is not a, you know, professional director and, and play producer like you are, has never, I don’t think, put on a basic traditional Christmas pageant.
You’ve taken the time to be like, well, that’s kind of boring. Let’s do something good. Like, let’s do something interesting with. Like characters and lines and production value.
[00:55:32] Josiah: Yeah, there, there was something that mom said about how it would have been easy, but way too cliche for Mr. Herdman to have heard about the pageant and come and attend.
Yeah. And then they all reunite at the end. I think in a similar way, based on all of the portrayals of theater I’ve seen in film, it would have been completely up any writer’s alley to say, and the pageant was actually, like, really well produced. With, like, pyrotechnics and professional costumes. Everyone had their lines and they were like professional actors.
But no, it was like a bunch of kids walking out in bedsheets, none of them had any lines.
[00:56:18] Rebekah: Or bathrobes.
[00:56:19] Tim: I’m going to say, I’m going to say this line because it’s what a lot of churches during the time I grew up would say, well, it’s, it’s just for church. Everybody already knows the story, so this is just a reminder.
Have they seen Best Christmas Badge Ever? I’m just, I’m just saying that, that in, in a lot of people’s minds, they just don’t want to put enough, put so much effort into it. I mean, we, we do, we do things. Differently. You’re, you’ve done drama. I’ve written dramas and directed them in the church, and I want them to be really good.
And people are always telling me, oh, don’t get so uptight about it. Don’t get so uptight about what’s going on now. I only get uptight because I want it to be done. Well, excellence. I want it to be done as excellently as possible. If all I have are bedsheets, I’ve got enough talent and I know enough people with enough talent to turn bedsheets into actual costumes.
They may not be elaborate costumes. We’ve done many church plays with floodlights connected to a homemade light board with. Bader switches like you would put in your home because that’s what we could afford and that’s what we could do. But we did the best we could with what what we could do. We didn’t simply say it was good enough because it’s just church.
Right? I’m always concerned that. Sometimes we get really comfortable with that thought. It’s just church. So why would we do X, Y, Z? I think the portrayal in the book and in the film is unfortunately more realistic than it should be.
[00:58:17] Josiah: Yeah, and I think that we started this because I was saying that I slightly preferred the book where the Herdmans don’t have to go through a whole character arc before they actually come to the pageant day of, but in the movie it was still, you know, a beautiful character arc where Imogene in particular had to overcome other people Not loving her and not accepting her and it was a beautiful thing for Beth to go out of her comforts Completely out of her comfort zone to bring the Herdman’s back and maybe it didn’t even work and then you got that Got that beautiful image that you didn’t get in the book of Alice putting on the Mary costume that you love so much No, so there were a lot of good things in the movie But the book summarily describes the pageant Whereas we do see most of it played out in the film.
Grace, the mom, acts the mom and the director acts as the narrator from the back of the sanctuary. Which is not mentioned specifically in the book. I’m trying to think if I think that no one has lines, even adults, except for the Angel of the
[00:59:26] Musical Intro: Lord.
[00:59:27] Josiah: Right, the Angel of the
[00:59:28] Tim: Lord is the only one with lines.
They do say that several times.
[00:59:31] Rebekah: That’s why, that’s why that would be me.
[00:59:34] Tim: She’d
[00:59:35] Josiah: have the only lines. I think that GLaDOS in the movie does portray her line better than I’ve seen it. Um, better than I think it was read in the audiobook, better than in the, oh, so much better than the TV movie. Yeah. I don’t want to say better than the plays I’ve seen, because I might know the actresses who played Gladys, but, um, not until the movie did I realize.
Hey, unto you a child is born. It’s like Gladys being scary. I’ve usually seen it played as like, Hey, unto you a child is born, like, innocently cute. Like, I don’t really know what this means. Hey. But she’s
[01:00:15] Rebekah: not cute.
[01:00:16] Josiah: No, no, no. She’s scary. Like the shepherds were sore afraid. Sort of thing,
[01:00:22] Rebekah: which is, you know, again, more real to the, what it probably was like to live in this kind of version.
[01:00:27] Tim: They were sore and afraid, you know, they were,
[01:00:31] Rebekah: uh, speaking of the boys in the film. I loved that the wise men herd men’s brought a Christmas ham. That they’d been gifted from the church, and that was their present to the baby Jesus, rather than something to represent the, you know, oils and spices that the wise men brought, which I thought was really cute that in the, in the movie, I probably in the book too, they make some comment about like, what does a baby need?
A baby doesn’t need all that stuff. But it’s like, they brought him, they brought him a Christmas ham. And it’s like, babies live on breast milk for like, Or a while, probably. Which they should definitely know about. Yeah, which they should know. But, uh, it’s mentioned in the book that they do bring the Christmas ham back to the church.
They offer it as a gift to the church. They refuse to take it home and eat it, which was, like, really special and sweet. But the book doesn’t mention them using it as a prop. And I thought that was Did they not? I didn’t think so. I
[01:01:25] Tim: thought
[01:01:25] Rebekah: it did. Okay, well, I just liked it and I put it in my notes because I liked it, I guess.
[01:01:31] Josiah: That’s so sweet of you. Yeah. He, I think them, it’s real, it’s very little drummer boy of them.
[01:01:37] Donna: Mm-hmm . Yeah. Them carrying the ham up, the up the aisle was great. It was so good. And watching people react, watching the kids react and watching Alice up there beside bet and she was like, ha. And she’s just like out of her mind.
[01:01:54] Tim: I thought it was a great setup earlier when the dad had them go with him to deliver the ham so they knew. We knew as an audience through the kids, just how important that ham was to them. It was the most important thing they had.
[01:02:11] Josiah: Yeah, what the movie does, that I don’t think the play does, and I don’t think the book does, is, as they’re driving away, the film shows you how they’re fighting over it.
Yes. How none of them, like, don’t like ham. Uh huh. All of them
[01:02:24] Tim: love ham. Yeah. Because doesn’t Alice say they probably don’t even like ham? Yes. And Beth says, oh no, they really like ham. Yes. Mm
[01:02:31] Donna: hmm. Yeah, we realize as the movie ends that adult Beth has been narrating the story all along. She’s telling the story of why the Christmas pageant is so important to her, to a new group of children volunteering for parts for the very same Christmas pageant.
After dismissing the group, she walks around the room and looks at the cast photo and Gladys angel wings, reminiscing of the best Christmas pageant ever. This was deflating a little bit for me. I thought it was too predictable. I love that she told the story, and I love that you see her wrapping up the story, but one, would she have sat that long in front of a bunch of parents standing in the back of a room waiting, and children sitting in
[01:03:19] Josiah: chairs, In theory, reading the entire book, which takes an hour and a half to read.
That would
[01:03:26] Tim: be long, but I, I get it. But yeah, the reality of that kind of burst the bubble.
[01:03:32] Donna: Now, I love that they had GLaDOS wings up there. I thought that was cute. But would we keep a pair of Angel wings? Well, I say that, but we have been in places where they had, I’ll say relics for the lack of a better word.
of something that someone from the past either donated to the church or a depiction of something and I guess it does become a very, well I’ve, I’ve, we’ve used the term sacred cow before where you can’t, you can’t touch it, you can’t, you know, when honestly If you look back to the story of of the nativity, if you look back to the story of the Christmas pageant, there was literally no relics involved.
They were thrown to the side. They weren’t important. Nobody even really genuinely. They didn’t care about this couple at all. I mean, everything that happened in the story is almost. A is almost diametrically opposed to the way we want to depict church. And I think there again, that all came together for me and it was incredibly impactful.
[01:04:48] Josiah: I think that the Lauren Graham scene at the end. Reeks of cutting room floor, but it’s the only scene where we see Lauren Graham’s face, so we can’t cut it. It was very odd, tonally, I think. It, I mean, one thing I think it might have done well was change the time period forward in the future, still without setting it in a specific time period.
I did feel like we were more modern, but still vague.
[01:05:18] Musical Intro: Yeah. I guess
[01:05:19] Josiah: that was one good thing, but, um, I think it kind of misses the point to suddenly treat the Herdmans like the point of the Christmas story. Instead of Jesus birth, which the Herdmans taught them about, in theory.
[01:05:37] Rebekah: I do think that they were trying to communicate that the point wasn’t Herdmans.
The point was that the Herdmans got it, and because the Herdmans got it. The rest of the church got it and realized like that they had missed the point two of it being about Jesus. And so it was a little odd maybe to be pulled out of that. I did not hate, I didn’t hate Beth, like adult Beth being the one telling the story to this new group of recruits or whatever.
I thought that that was less weird than like, I would have been okay with her just kind of like. You know, looking at the picture of the cast and having like a quick moment with it, I would have almost preferred like a dull Imogene to be in the scene or something like that to show, you know, like that, oh, wow, like Imogene’s like still part of the church today, like, you know.
It did kind of feel like they died.
[01:06:30] Josiah: They died the next year.
[01:06:32] Rebekah: Yeah, which was kind of weird. But, yeah, a little bit. But I think the part that was weird to me was there were literally two spots where she Sorry.
[01:06:44] Donna: Oh no. Poor little Herbie
[01:06:45] Rebekah: family. Their house blew up. They all came to Jesus
[01:06:47] Donna: and their
[01:06:48] Rebekah: house burned up.
So they set it on fire with their chemistry set. Yeah. But it was weird to me that she like took forever to stare at the picture of the cast. And it’s like, oh, it’s this cute little closing moment and then she stands up and then she steps back and then she walks over to the angel wings and then has this long extended moment with the angel wings.
It was very weird. It did. Honestly, I didn’t get the sense that it was just to set the time period back to now. Like, if I’m being honest, she was one of the most recognizable people that acted in the story. But if you just hear her talk, you don’t necessarily connect the face to the voice for a lot of people who aren’t disconnected.
And I think I, if I’m being honest, it felt a little bit like, Hey, this is the most famous Son, can we please make sure they get plenty of screen time? And it’s like, maybe that was just contractual, like I don’t really know what that comes down to.
[01:07:40] Josiah: The director in an interview said that his girls love Gilmore Girls and he and his wife love Parenthood.
[01:07:47] Rebekah: Okay, so it may have just been kind of one of those things where they were seeing through the lens of what they enjoy. But that was probably one of the only things in the movie that I was like, eh, it’s kind of a miss for me. Like the way that, that double ending thing, it did, like I said, it didn’t bug me.
Not that you saw Lauren Graham, but just that
[01:08:04] Donna: it seemed.
[01:08:05] Rebekah: It seemed like she was in the room by herself for too long, reminiscing too much. Like it felt like it took the focus away from what you were supposed to think about. Yeah.
[01:08:12] Josiah: I also don’t like the idea of her. Telling the story about the best Christmas pageant ever to the kids who are about to put on the Christmas pageant.
That’s like, don’t put those expectations on them.
[01:08:24] Rebekah: Like, could you be telling this story to your kids or something?
[01:08:27] Josiah: Yeah, don’t, don’t be telling, okay kids, what you’re about to do, here’s the time it was the best ever and it’ll never be as good. But we’re gonna keep doing it anyway.
[01:08:37] Donna: And we won’t even let you use the angel wings of the one from the best.
You can’t use those either.
[01:08:42] Tim: Oh, you guys. Well, that, that was something that Dallas added that was not in the book. He also added in the credits, um, the fate of each of the Herdmans, um, and I thought that was fun. I thought it was a little, little strange. You usually only see that in real life movies. You know, this is a, this is a animal house.
It’s a real story. Well, but animal, even animal house is based on real people. I believe you can look that up, but that is
[01:09:15] Rebekah: more common for a more common nonfiction story.
[01:09:18] Tim: Yeah. So I thought that the, the future of the Herdman’s was fun. Yeah. I loved
[01:09:24] Rebekah: that.
[01:09:25] Tim: You know, the boy who cussed in all of his classes, you know, became a teacher and nobody ever cussed in his class.
You know, all of those kinds of things. One of the Hermans ended up in jail and said, well, listen,
[01:09:39] Rebekah: statistically, that’s still way better than the norm for where, how they grew up.
[01:09:42] Josiah: Yes. Okay. What they said, yeah.
[01:09:44] Donna: Drives the, drives home. My point. It’s real life. And if all six of them had grown up to be completely productive and la la, la, la, la yeah.
It would not have been real. And I, I thought that was perfect.
[01:09:57] Rebekah: But the one about Imogene had six children and that their mom was always around, like that, that was beautiful, like that was, it was perfect.
[01:10:08] Tim: Yeah, I really liked that.
[01:10:10] Donna: This book was released in 1972, written by Margaret Robinson. Thought it was, I did think it was interesting.
There was not a date of release other than the year. Interesting. Who knows? It’s a children’s book. I get it. It’s so far back
[01:10:24] Tim: in history.
[01:10:25] Donna: So far back. The movie released. Ancient history doesn’t keep records back there. Oh
[01:10:30] Rebekah: my gosh.
[01:10:33] Donna: The movie released on November 2nd, 2024 in Los Angeles and on November 8th, 2024 in the rest of the U.
S. The book rating on Goodreads was 4. 23 out of 5, and that’s 59 just short of 60, 000 ratings. Wow, that’s a
[01:10:52] Tim: lot of ratings.
[01:10:53] Donna: The Rotten Tomatoes rating was 91%, which was fresh, and we did watch something today, just kind of looking at some other people opinion information. They noted that right as the movie first came out, the rating on Rotten Tomatoes was a hundred percent for a while, the critics rating, which is really cool.
Um, but it’s 91%, which is very solid. The IMDB rating is 7.4 out of 10. Uh, the popcorn meter, which we used to know as flixter audience score Oh goodness. Uh, was, is 97%. Makes sense from the different reviews we’ve read from from
[01:11:34] Rebekah: viewers also. The, um, Rotten Tomatoes now does a verified audience and all audience popcorn meter, basically verifying, I don’t know how they do that, but anyway.
They weren’t just
[01:11:46] Tim: bots.
[01:11:47] Rebekah: But they call, they call it verified hot, meaning like it is definitely hot and these are real ratings. This wasn’t like a bunch of bots.
[01:11:55] Donna: I do like that, and I think that’s important, honestly, because bots are a real thing in social media right now, so. Production cost was 10 million.
Which honestly just sounds like a massively low budget and it also tells the truth of where we live because 10 million dollars is an amount of money. I can’t explain or understand true, but it’s still a low budget, but opening weekend hit 10. 8 million. Uh, including preview preview showings the Sunday and Thursday before that pulled in a half a million and that exceeded projection.
Some people said it would may hit 10 million, but most people said maybe five to seven. So that was pretty cool. It, it definitely beat expectation. Um, the USA Canada gross as of the day before we’re recording this. So as of November 29th. It was 28. 8 million future editing
[01:12:52] Rebekah: note, the worldwide gross of this film as of the week for Christmas has actually gotten to almost the 8 million international is still just under 170, 000.
They had some big bumps around Thanksgiving right after we recorded this.
[01:13:07] Donna: It was filmed in Winnipeg and Manitoba, Canada. Between December 6th, 2023 and January 27th, 2024. So they were assured of
[01:13:18] Rebekah: snow.
[01:13:19] Donna: So they were assured of some snow, you would think. I hope so. And also, um, filmed it in, in just over a month.
And there was Christmas there, so you knew, probably took a couple weeks break for Christmas. But so really that’s pretty impressive. They filmed the whole thing in a month, bunch of children, but it also makes the 10 million sound doable too. Yeah.
[01:13:42] Tim: A comment about when it was, when it was filmed. Most Christmas movies are filmed in summertime and things like that.
And I, this is so interesting to me. It’s like everybody would have actually been in a Christmas mode when they’re filming. So they’re not having to pretend that, you know, I’m in t shirt and shorts on the beach and now I’m in a winter coat in this pretend fake snow. And it
[01:14:07] Rebekah: was really snowing.
[01:14:08] Tim: Yeah. In a place where it would have really been cold.
I did hear one of the actors. Actresses, I believe, on the red carpet on the day it was released, in her interview, she was saying, somebody asked her a question and she said, it was very cold.
[01:14:24] Josiah: So. You know, another piece of trivia, mom, I mentioned earlier that the author, Barbara Robinson adapted the book into the play that I’ve seen a couple of times, I think it was about 10 years after she published the book is when she.
Adapted into a play, and the first performance was at the Seattle Children’s Theater, November of 1982. And then it was made only a year later into the television movie that we’ve also mentioned, also adapted by the author, Barbara Robinson. Premiered on ABC in 1983, starring Loretta Swit. Who dad recognized from M.
A. S. H. And a then unknown actress, Feyruza Balk. I have no idea who that is, but a She’s still unknown to
[01:15:12] Rebekah: us.
[01:15:13] Josiah: Says that she was Dorothy in Return to Oz. In my opinion, Loretta Looked way older in the TV movie than her 46 years. I don’t, and I don’t mean to be a big misogynist, but all women are ugly, right?
She had gray hair, so. Well, but it looked like she had a lot of plastic surgery. And Judy Greer was older than her in, uh, in this new movie. She was 49 years old when this movie came out. She was probably 48 when it was filmed. I didn’t think Judy Greer, not that it’s bad to look like you’re 48, 49, but I feel like that’s a little old to be Grace.
Are you trying to be careful not to age shame someone? Well, at the same time, I do think it’s fair to say Grace has like an 8 year old. Yeah. So I’d put her more in the 39 range than 49. Yeah. But I think Judy Greer
[01:16:14] Tim: She pulled it off. Yeah,
[01:16:15] Rebekah: in the TV movie.
[01:16:16] Tim: One of the things that I thought was interesting about the TV movie that, that starred Loretta Swit.
Swit, yeah. Was the fact that her husband did not match her in looks. And the other part was, when you talk about age, it seemed to me like the children that were used for the TV movie were much, much younger than the ones used for the, for the theatrical release. Oh, the TV
[01:16:42] Josiah: movie, I don’t know if you want to talk More about the TV movie, but yeah, I feel like I kind of like the script But the directing and the casting were so bad and the cinematography was so low quality.
It was
[01:16:54] Rebekah: distracting
[01:16:55] Josiah: Yeah, I like some of
[01:16:56] Rebekah: the things they did with it kind of like you said But there
[01:16:58] Josiah: were a lot of good choices that the author clearly knew what she was going for She made some good choices in adapting the book to a TV film, but yeah, it was so cheap and so shoddily put
[01:17:13] Tim: together. This was, this was the period of time, though, that you get the phrase, oh, it was a made for TV movie.
Because now you guys are used to, oh, that show was made for HBO, now Max. Um, that show was made for Netflix, and at one point in time you would be like, oh, well that explains why it’s such a low quality. But now that’s completely different. It’s like, oh, that’s, that’s really good, well
[01:17:39] Josiah: made. HBO and Max are technically different things for some reason still.
[01:17:45] Tim: Okay. Mm hmm. Well. Very silly. Dallas Jenkins. This kind of answers something that you all brought up earlier. Dallas Jenkins sent personal notes to Judy Greer, who would play Grace, the mom. Pete Holmes, who would play Bob, the dad. And Lauren Graham, the adult Beth narrator. Um, telling them why he admired them and their acting and why he thought they were his perfect picks for the roles.
Then he asked them to consider it. All three actors agreed. Aww. I like that. So he, he wanted each of those in and so he was very involved in getting them in.
[01:18:27] Donna: One of his strengths, I think, as a director has been, even though his last two projects, Chosen and now this, are faith based productions. He does not require everybody in the production on cast or crew to be Christian.
He involves people he thinks will enhance the parts that he wants to portray. But Dallas Jenkins, uh, uh, as I just said, directed this film and, and he’s also in the midst of, Uh, the chosen TV series and we’re getting ready to, um, see, uh, season five comes out in the spring of seven series. So he’s still right in the middle of that.
But besides Dallas, there are four other chosen cast and crew members in the best Christmas pageant ever. Uh, Elizabeth Tabish plays Mrs. Grady, which is one of the snooty mothers that we see throughout the film. And in the chosen, she is Mary of Magdala. In, uh, in the school room scene, the first grade teacher is Vanessa Bon, uh, Benavente.
I think it’s probably close. Um, and she also in the chosen plays Mary mother of Jesus. Ryan Swanson is a screenwriter in both pieces, which I thought was kind of cool that he used him. And then Kirk B. R. Waller. Is Reverend Hopkins and he also plays guys in the chosen and Kirk Baller has been in every production that Dallas has been a part of
[01:20:07] Rebekah: from
[01:20:07] Donna: his beginning.
He’s known Kirk for years and has incredible respect for him. And I will say that the character of guys and the chosen is 1 of the most solid and well developed characters of the whole cast. I do love him. So I think I thought that was pretty cool that they’ve worked together all this time.
[01:20:26] Rebekah: So in an interview with movieguide.
org, Jenkins stated, quote, I know there is a very strong connection between both the chosen and the best Christmas pageant ever. So you’ll see a stylistic difference, but you’re going to come away with the same thing, which is I’m seeing the story in many ways for the first time, maybe in a way I haven’t considered, but I appreciate it even more now.
And that’s what we’ve been hearing over and over. End quote. And I, I thought that was really cool. Like I thought there was so much about the story that felt familiar, even though I’ve never seen this on the stage, I’d never read the book until we decided to do it for the podcast. But I also can understand like it felt like a lot of Christmases or sorry, a lot of churches at Christmas.
It felt like a lot of churches encountering difficult folks or people who’d been through some stuff, you know, and it felt like I was seeing it from a different angle. So I actually would say that I agree with that. So it’s time for our final verdicts. Who wants to go first?
[01:21:29] Tim: I would like to go first this time.
This is one of those unique times where I feel like the film added to the book. Um, a lot of times we have to take a large book and adapt it to a much shorter film and they cut this and they cut that and all that. Uh, this one may have, may have cut a couple of things, but I thought that it Uh, expanded on so many things, gave us more motivation, allowed us to see things that we wouldn’t have, that we didn’t see in the book.
And so I really like the film because unlike the motivation, the thing that we normally say, well, the book adds all so much more detail this time, the film added the extra detail and I really liked that. For me, it’s the, the movie, um, I thought it, he did a good job, the acting was good, the, the production value was great, um, good book, I enjoyed the book, I really liked the movie better.
[01:22:32] Donna: Nice. I felt like this is possibly The closest to a 50 50 split for me on the on a preference I felt like the narrator of the book Added a different a little different flavor because I because her voice uh Reminded me or
[01:22:56] Josiah: Herdman y.
[01:22:57] Donna: Yeah, it was a little Herdman y. I wouldn’t have been shocked
[01:23:01] Tim: by Imogene Herdman y.
Yeah,
[01:23:03] Donna: and that added a different flavor to me. And she had some very funny lines in the book. The way she, her delivery was great. But then on the movie side, even though the narrator was completely different, I thought there were things in the acting and the things in the way. Things that Dallas portrayed that like Tim said enhanced the book and so I’m it’s I don’t think I’ve ever been this I really like both equally quite this much so I’m, I know that’s probably podcast taboo here, but I’m going to say it’s a 50 50 split.
I’m not going to pick
[01:23:42] Tim: no 5149. Nice.
[01:23:45] Josiah: Yeah, it’s it’s pretty close to 5050 for me to me. I think I might give it to the book, ultimately, I think that I really like the core of what the book says, and the themes, and the characters, and what it all means, and I think that the movie adds some good stuff, but ultimately I think it Sort of lessens the effect of the stuff I loved in the first place, mainly.
There’s so much emphasis on, we need to get the Herdmans here, because it’s important for them to be a part of this. It’s like, that’s true, but I feel like the punch at the end of the book, and the play as well, I like the punch, maybe better, of Everyone’s there because we hate the Herdmans and we’re just waiting to see them do something awful so that we can say never let them in here again.
And then the Herdmans aren’t really trying to be revolutionary. They’re just being themselves. And it just so happens. Yeah, it just so happens that they change everyone’s perspective. On not only the Christmas story, but also their reaction to new people in the church that make them uncomfortable. So, yeah, I think the film did a lot of good things, and they didn’t really take out much.
The stuff they added was mostly good. I thought they could have done without the narration. They could have figured it out. Uh, or leaned into the narration and just went full Christmas story. It kind of felt a little Christmas story at the beginning, and then, and see, I love that about it, so, yeah, but then it goes away, because you don’t, see, my problem, if you don’t need narration all the time, why just, I don’t know, why use it when, it’s so clear that you’re just using it as a crutch, because you need to, it’s like, I can’t think of any other way to do it, or this is the easiest way for me to get my point across, um, yeah, but, uh, yeah.
And I could have done without the extended Lauren Graham sequence, maybe a shorter one would have worked, but overall, I think the, the book is just a nice, a nice book to read. It’s quick also, which is a benefit in a lot of ways.
[01:26:14] Rebekah: Yeah.
[01:26:15] Josiah: I guess I’ll leave it at that.
[01:26:16] Rebekah: I think my final verdict was pretty easy that the film for me was better.
The book was fine. I liked it. For what it was, I don’t make a habit of re listening to a lot of short things like that, like I tend to want to choose books that are going to take several hours on purpose if I’m like listening to an audiobook or whatever, so I don’t tend to read short things a lot anyway.
But I liked the things that were added to the film. I liked that Grace became a character with a lot more, like, depth to her.
[01:26:48] Josiah: Yeah, Judy Greer did great.
[01:26:49] Rebekah: As did Beth. Yeah, I liked that both of those characters had more depth. And I felt like, for me, the visual of watching Imogene crying, like, recognizing, like, what, what Mary was like.
For real, and how she was actually brave and like imaging got to take on a little bit of that and it like it made her feel stronger, it made her feel like more capable of surviving and I don’t know, I thought the visual of that was really, really nice for me and so yeah, I preferred. The movie I think I like this can be something I would say that I would put on every Christmas, which I’ve heard a lot of people say and like it would become a rewatch or like Christmas tradition for me.
Probably not watch or probably not reading or listening to the book will be a tradition necessarily. So that’s probably how I come up with that.
[01:27:37] Donna: But we didn’t really mention much about that. That final scene, he made uncomfortable silence so impactful with her staring at that baby and people see in tears go down her face that you’re right.
It was. It was a great use of, of uncomfortable.
[01:27:58] Tim: I thought it was, I thought it was more effective than the way they did it in the TV movie. They did the same kind of thing, but it was only, I don’t remember if it was Beth or Al, whichever one of the kids walked into the dressing room to tell Imogene she needed to be on stage and she was holding the baby and that was the moment.
[01:28:19] Rebekah: Um, she had like just taken out her earrings and then she saw her responding.
[01:28:23] Tim: And, you know, just the two of them, they’re the only ones. I think it was Beth. Yeah. But I thought it was more effective in the movie than in the TV movie.
[01:28:32] Donna: We, Tim and I have seen this twice, uh, in theaters and
[01:28:38] Tim: So we’ve already re watched it.
[01:28:39] Donna: Yeah. And I did not notice the first time I did. Somehow I didn’t catch it that as she’s sitting there looking at the baby there at the end that she takes her earrings out because she made a massive deal. I can’t take these out because I just I just had them done and Gladys. Yeah, that Gladys just pierced my ears and they might grow together.
I did not notice until the second time we watched that she took them out and that probably That heightened the importance of the moment, even more that something so she was so put her foot down on, she recognized, wow, what are these earrings? And she took them out. Yes,
[01:29:19] Josiah: exactly. She decided of her own volition that it was important.
Yeah, pretty awesome. Shout out to Paige for recommending.
[01:29:27] Rebekah: What? I can’t hear you.
[01:29:29] Josiah: Guzman. I can’t
[01:29:30] Rebekah: hear you if you’re not talking to the mic. Are we still friends
[01:29:32] Josiah: with
[01:29:32] Rebekah: Paige Guzman? Guzman, yes.
[01:29:35] Josiah: Shout out to Paige Guzman, who A couple years ago, whenever Spring House was doing this as their Christmas show, Paige was like, Oh my goodness, I read this with my kids every year.
So it’s a tradition in her household to read the book. Oh, that’s so sweet. I
[01:29:54] Rebekah: love it. Well, if you enjoyed this episode, please, like I said, leave us a five star rating or review. It would be just the best Christmas present ever. Uh, we’re also live on Patreon and would love to have your support as a free subscriber or part of one of the paid tiers for some bonus stuff.
You can also find us on X Instagram and Facebook at book is better pod. And if you have questions, want to suggest an episode, yes, I’m setting up the 2025 schedule. So this is the time to suggest new episodes. Um, or just want to have fun with us, you can also join our discord server for free at the link in the episode description and until then, Merry Christmas.
[01:30:33] Tim: Merry Christmas. Fa la
[01:30:35] Rebekah: la la.
[01:30:38] Josiah: I’m not
[01:30:39] Rebekah: reading that. Mom,
[01:30:42] Josiah: can you read that?
[01:30:43] Rebekah: Huh? Oh, I closed my site. Oh, she closed it. Oh no, nobody can read it. Sorry, it’s not, I can see it. I’m just not going to say that loud. I would
[01:30:52] Donna: love it if you read it, TJ.
[01:30:55] Musical Intro: I want
[01:30:55] Donna: to go see it now. You’ve piqued my interest.
[01:30:58] Tim: Yeah, yeah.
[01:31:00] Donna: I’m
[01:31:00] Tim: a master.
That’s a little, that’s a little too much excitement.
[01:31:04] Donna: Wow.
[01:31:05] Tim: You got to read it out loud.
[01:31:08] Donna: I don’t think I should. I think it’s better for the listening audience. If, if they just wonder.
[01:31:15] Tim: I do. It is the season of wonder. Josh edits this out.
[01:31:22] Donna: All right, here we go into basic info about the book. Let me tell you, I’m not going to
[01:31:27] Rebekah: punch you.
You’re my mother.
[01:31:30] Musical Intro: Oh.
