BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens with an adult Beth Bradley (Lauren Graham) narrating about how the Herdman siblings – Imogene (Beatrice Schneider), Ralph (Mason D. Nelligan), Claude (Matthew Lamb), Ollie (Essek Moore), Leroy (Ewan Wood), and Gladys (Kynlee Heiman) – are the worst kids in the world. They are troublemakers whose mother is never seen, and their presence terrifies both children and adults in town.

Beth (Molly Belle Wright) lives with her parents, Grace (Judy Greer) and Bob (Pete Holmes), and brother Charlie (Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez) in the town of Emmanuel. After Leroy brings in his pet cat to terrorize the class, the kids are let out, where Imogene steals Beth’s locket that her mom gave her.

The town hosts an annual Christmas pageant, with this year being their 75th anniversary celebration. The usual director, Mrs. Armstrong (Mariam Bernstein), suffers an accident where she breaks both her legs. When Mrs. Wendelken (Danielle Hoetmer), mother of Beth’s classmate Alice (Lorelei Olivia Mote), makes a snooty remark towards Grace for not typically getting involved in events, she takes it as a challenge and volunteers to direct the Christmas pageant, to Bob’s chagrin.

At school, Charlie keeps getting his snacks taken away by Leroy. He lets it slip that he gets all the snacks he wants at church, which prompts the Herdmans to make their first ever appearance at church, to everyone’s surprise and horror. While they don’t participate in hymns or the offering, they pay attention when Grace starts to cast for the Nativity part of the pageant. While Alice is usually Mary, Imogene insists on being Mary and that Ralph be Joseph, while Leroy, Ollie, and Claude are the Three Wise Men, and Gladys be the Angel of the Lord. Grace tries to get the other kids to volunteer, but they are too frightened to make any attempts, plus Imogene threatens Alice into stepping down from the role. The other moms and Mrs. Armstrong chastise Grace for not doing anything to keep the Herdmans out, but she promises they will not be a problem.

Later on, the children go to the church to rehearse for the pageant, where the Herdmans pelt them all with snowballs until the adults show up. When they all gather inside, Grace starts to recount the Nativity story, which the Herdmans have never actually heard before. They get surprisingly into it, albeit a bit aggressive, like wanting to kill King Herod for wanting to get rid of Baby Jesus, and Imogene taking the Lord’s name in vain too much. When the Herdmans start assigning the minor roles to the other kids, they make Gladys try to scare them by grabbing a prop rod and chasing the other kids with it until Grace makes her stop.

Afterwards, Grace sees Imogene looking at a painting of Mary holding Jesus, admiring that she looks “nice and pretty”. Grace tries to get Imogene to consider just watching the pageant instead of being in it so she can absorb the story more, but Imogene declines and says she will go ahead with being Mary.

The next day, the Bradleys all gather for a drive, as Bob has always secretly visited the Herdmans and delivered a Christmas ham to them since their mother never has enough money for a real dinner. Grace starts to slowly soften up to the Herdmans and decides to disregard what the other moms say.

The Herdmans brush up on their homework by getting a copy of the Bible and learning more about Jesus. As the group rehearses, Mrs. Armstrong sends moms like Alice’s mom to snoop in and make sure the Herdmans aren’t ruining anything, while Alice is taking notes for her. Meanwhile, Beth continues to pray that the Herdmans don’t ruin anything.

Grace starts to get the kids ready for their dress rehearsal while the other adults are hosting a potluck. They run into some problems, such as nobody wanting to volunteer their babies to be Jesus once they learned the Herdmans would be involved. Imogene also doesn’t want to remove her earrings since Gladys pierced her ears for her. After an argument, Imogene goes to the bathroom, and a fire is reported moments later because she was smoking a cigar there. The other moms come down on Grace for allowing the Herdmans to run amok and ruin the pageant like they figured they would.

The following day, Grace is unable to get in touch with the Herdmans. Beth rides her bike to the house and confronts Imogene over how much her mom has stuck out her neck for Imogene and her siblings when the rest of the town wanted nothing to do with them. Imogene tells Beth that she doesn’t think she should play Mary because she doesn’t embody the “nice and pretty” image in the painting. Beth encourages her to not give up and see the pageant through.

That night, the pageant begins, with Alice stepping in for Mary. However, moments into the show’s start, Alice rejoins the choir with a pouty face. The Herdmans have decided to join the pageant after all, with Imogene and Ralph being Mary and Joseph (and Imogene removing her earrings), and Imogene making the audience laugh by play-burping Baby Jesus (which ends up just being a doll). Claude, Ollie, and Leroy bring their ham in place of the frankincense and myrrh, since ham is still considered a gift from the Herdmans. Gladys as the angel also draws laughs for her shrill commands to Mary and Joseph. During the pageant’s end, the Bradleys see Imogene starting to tear up as she feels genuine Christmas spirit for the first time. Everybody then applauds at the end, and the Herdmans are treated to some food, finally getting along with the townspeople. Imogene also returns Beth’s locket to her.

Adult Beth ends her story to a new generation of children who are participating in the pageant. She tells them about Imogene thinking the Mary painting was “just right”, and how she has mused over what she meant by that. Beth concludes that this is why the pageant is important to the town. They have also kept Gladys’s old wings that she wore in the pageant. Beth then looks at a picture of herself with the Herdmans during that fateful pageant.

The ending text states what became of the Herdmans – Ollie has become a vet who specializes in feline research. Claude is a public school teacher, and his students do not dare cuss at him. Leroy ended up in jail a few times, but he’s doing better now. Gladys became a flight attendant, and all her passengers always listen to her. Ralph became the pastor of the largest church in the midwest. Imogene tried acting for a bit before deciding to become the director of the Christmas pageant at Ralph’s church. She is a mother to five children, and unlike her own mother, Imogene remains an active presence in her kids’ lives.

The Herdmans - Imogene, Ralph, Ollie, Leroy, Claude, and Gladys - are the worst children in the town of Emmanuel. When Grace Bradley ends up tasked with directing the town's 75th annual Christmas pageant, the Herdmans end up forcing their way into the pageant when they find that the church hosting the pageant has food that they don't need to steal. Despite the entire town's objection to the Herdmans' involvement, Grace gets her family to join in helping the siblings out.

While the Herdmans are predictably rambunctious at first, they become invested in the Nativity story and get excited to portray the story, although their antics clash with Grace's direction. The other moms keep trying to snoop and find any reason to declare Grace's pageant a failure.

On the day of the pageant, Grace cannot get in touch with the Herdmans. Her daughter Beth rides her bike to the Herdman house to confront Imogene (the eldest), as she has started to feel that she cannot play Mary since she does not embody the "nice and pretty" qualities that Mary does, but Beth convinces her otherwise. The Herdmans end up joining the pageant with sincerity, and even get the audience to laugh at some of the things they do. This causes the town to finally warm up to the Herdmans.

Beth uses this story as an adult (she's the narrator) for the latest generation of kids who are starting to get into the pageant. The Herdmans go on to take different career paths (except Leroy, who ends up in jail a few times), while Imogene becomes a better mom than her own mother.