The Worst Best Christmas Pageant Ever

In Which I Explain Why I Didn't Like That Movie

File: Mariotto Albertinelli - Adoration of the Child with Angel - WGA0127.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Happy Ninth Day of Christmas! It’s a veritable winter wonderland up here in Southern New York. The dogs had to be dragged out into the snow for a long walk, having indulged in too much New Year’s Roast Beef. They don’t believe in cold, nor the bits of salt that get stuck between their paws. I keep thinking I should buy them little booties, but how would I get them on and keep them there?

Last week, in a post First Day of Christmas haze, we paid 25 whole dollars to stream the new Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie off of Amazon Prime. We have only two movies we try to watch around Christmastime—The Hog Father and The Christmas Story—with various additions of Elf, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and the creepy Rudolph movie. We were therefore up for something new, hopeful that a good time could be had on a frosty winter evening.

I must pause here and offer a bunch of apologies for being the kind of person I am. First of all, I don’t really like movies as such. There are probably three or four films in the whole world that I am willing to watch on occasion. I am excessively suspicious of anything new. I hate suspense. I hate sentimentality. I don’t approve of movies that promise to do something I love very well and then fail. Failure, for me, is a broad category that encompasses almost the whole scope of movies and TV. Failure is slightly misjudging a character. It is casting the wrong person. It is banal writing. It is too long car chases. It is anything obvious and lacking subtlety. It is absolutely taking a good book, changing the plot, and explaining everything as if I am too stupid to keep up.

What I’m trying to say is that I was never going to love the new Best Christmas Pageant Ever.