"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" That Almost Wasn't

​      It was New Year's Eve, we had a houseful of out-of-town holiday visitors, among them some children, and we were powwowing to come up with something to do to ring out the old year and ring in the new that would be fun, festive, and family friendly. 
       It was one of my daughters, who was among the visitors, who suggested doing what our family used to do to celebrate New Year's Eve: We'd go out for dinner at Friendly's, then go to a movie. (I should add that when our children were young we seldom took them to the movies and almost never out to eat, except on New Year's Eve, which made doing both quite a special, and apparently in my daughter's case memorable, occasion).
       However, I had to break it to my daughter that Friendly's was no longer in business in Columbus, Ohio, which she was sad to hear. Still, everybody generally liked the idea of dinner somewhere else and a movie. 
        For dinner we came up with Bibibop, a fast food Asian eatery that everyone liked. Finding a family friendly movie playing around town turned out to be more of a challenge.
         There were Wicked and Moana 2, but the kids had already seen those. I suggested Mufasa until I looked at the stanky Rotten Tomato reviews.

      There was also Sonic the Hedgehog, which did pretty well Rotten Tomato-wise,

...except that none of the adults, myself included, felt that we could handle watching almost two hours of an animated video game.
​       Then I found this movie playing at the nearby Easton Town Center Mall:

      I'd seen the stage version of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and had memories of a funny, poignant, entertaining story of a family of naughty children who highjack the town's Christmas play with an unexpected outcome. And the reviews were top of the line. 

    The kids and I checked out the trailer and a thumbs up was given all around: Bibibop for dinner and "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" it would be.
     Now, here's something I haven't mentioned. Some of our holiday guests, including the children, were Jewish. But I didn't think that would matter, and neither did the children or their parents. A comedy is a comedy, and every comedy needs a setting, but good comedy will transcend its setting, which, as I recalled, this particular comedy did.
       And so when evening rolled around we headed for the mall,         

...which was full of families who, like us, had come for a New Year's Eve outing.

        We had our yummy Bibibop, strolled around the mall for a bit, then headed for our movie.
          Now, for me the first red flag popped up - well, maybe not exactly a red flag; more like a pink flag - anyway, it was during the opening credits of the film when the name of the production company showed on the screen:      

       To me the word "Kingdom" suggested - just a tad - a purveyor of evangelical Christian content. But, of course, I thought, I could be wrong. Except that by about three minutes into the movie I saw that I wasn't wrong. The story was preachy, churchy, and Christian-y, and the characters of the renegade children weren't just naughty, but downright nasty, a passel of raggedy, terrorizing little thugs.

        I found the movie alternately treacly and disturbing, and I wondered how the children in our group and their parents were taking this mix of religious Christmas corn syrup and juvenile delinquency.

          I dearly wished we'd gone to see Sonic the Hedgehog. (And how in the world, I wondered, did this goopy flick snag a 92-97% on Rotten Tomatoes?).
​         About fifteen minutes into the movie there was a loud siren which I - and it later turned out, other members of our group - though was part of the film, a police  car, say, coming after the bad children. 
          But that wasn't it. A moment later the screen went dark, the theater lights came up, and a voice over the loudspeaker told us that there was a fire in the mall and requested that we leave immediately by the nearest exit. Which we did, so quickly that the children left behind their popcorn and candy.
        (Note to all Easton Town Center movie goers: should you ever be in theater 22 as we were and have to make a quick get away from the theater, take an immediate left as soon as you exit the theater. There's an emergency exit leading to the outside right there. On the left of theater 22, that is).
           Now, I would certainly never wish a fire emergency on any person, place, or thing.  But dare I admit I was never so grateful for a fire emergency as I was for this one that rescued us from this movie and my embarrassment at having taken our Jewish  guests and their children to see it? I now wondered if  - and worried that - they might have been offended. 
             In fact, nobody was offended by the movie, but imagine my surprise when one of the kids asked if we could go back later and finish watching it. 
              "What, you liked it?" I asked. 
               "Yeah," they replied.
               As it turned out, the children, themselves middle schoolers, were not strangers to the problem of school bullies, and so this plot line resonated with them. As for the rest of the movie, they were curious and intrigued. They wanted to find out what was going to happen next. 
​                And so I volunteered to bite the bullet and, provided the mall had    reopened (it had; it turned out that the fire was not critical) to take the kids back  a couple of days later to see the rest of the movie. Which I did. And which they really liked.
               But here's the punchline: This time I ended up really liking the movie, too.
                Almost immediately after the point in the movie where we left last time  there was a major plot turn...and what to my wondering eyes should proceed to develop but an engaging, funny, heart-tugging story about a family of impoverished children who were hungry for food, care, knowledge, acceptance, and a sense of self-worth. And about a town full of  church-going Christian folks who in fact could be self-righteous, self-important,  judgmental, and unkind. And about how it took a crew of children who were themselves poor outcasts to bring to life the story of a baby born in a stable and laid in an animal feeding trough full of hay.   
                By the end of the movie I was roaming through my purse for a Kleenex.  It turned out that the comedy and humanity of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" did, in fact, transcend its setting.
​                And I'm more than willing to grant the movie its 92-97% on Rotten Tomatoes.