The Christmas Pageant

Family friendly story of a small town Christmas pageant with a big city director.
Vera is a diva director who gets fired from her third job in one year in the opening scenes of this movie. When all else fails, her manager (played well by veteran singer Steve Lawrence), lands her a job as director of a Christmas pageant in a small town. Shortly after arriving she encounters her former boyfriend, Jack, in the local coffee shop, which he owns. After her first disastrous meeting with her cast of characters (and you can apply that in two ways), she packs back up and calls a taxi to come get her so that she can catch a train back to New York. But with encouragement from the perceptive owner of the B&B where she was lodging, she remains.
She alienates herself from some of the townspeople by her desire to change things and endears herself to others by bringing out their hidden talents. And along the way she is enchanted by Jack's young daughter (who is charming) and her heart is touched by the genuine warmth and acceptance of the community.
*Spoiler Alert*...

Another Good Melissa Gilbert Christmas
What are the Holidays without a poignant Melissa Gilbert movie? We love her, and she delivers once again with this familiar Christmas tale of finding what's truly important in life.

Gilbert's character is a Broadway director with all the right stuff to succeed but floundering because of personality problems. She pursues her profession without regard to anything else. Now, because no one wants to hire her, her agent forces her to take a menial job directing a small town Christmas pageant. Not only that, but her ex-fiance, with a cute daughter, recommended her.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, we know where all this is headed; however, such is the nature of these family friendly, part romantic comedy, part mushy drama, with endearing oddball characters, small town folksiness, overly sentimental, but gotta love them anyway, type flicks.

It's well filmed and acted for the genre. Pot-bellied Edward Herrmann plays a jolly innkeeper. The story's fine and...

enjoyable
Okay, so this movie was enjoyable and fun in a corny kind of way. I bought it on a whim and I will watch it again. Not reality, but good none the less. Glad that we added it to our Christmas collection.

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