Opening
Chapters 5–6 push the pageant from private chaos to public spectacle as the Herdmans take the Christmas story seriously—and personally. Their raw outrage reframes familiar events, while Mother stands firm against mounting pressure, insisting the show must go on.
What Happens
Chapter 5: Herod the King
At home, the Narrator and her Mother recount the disastrous rehearsal to Father. Mother frames the Herdmans’ disruptive questions as a matter of Perspective and Understanding: What would anyone think if they heard the Christmas story for the first time? Father agrees it’s “pretty disgraceful” that a pregnant Mary has to sleep in a stable. Mother beams—this fury proves the Herdmans’ “good instincts.” Yes, they want to “burn Herod alive,” but they also zero in on protecting Mary and Jesus and pin Herod as the villain. Suddenly, everyone cares about King Herod, a figure the family barely notices before.
Their curiosity sends the Herdmans to the public library. The veterans at the circulation desk gape as Imogene Herdman and her siblings ask for books on Herod. Research complete, they’re furious to learn he dies of old age without punishment—even after killing his own wife. Meanwhile, Alice Wendleken starts a secret notebook, logging every Herdman offense: Gladys Herdman guzzles communion grape juice; Imogene smokes in the girls’ room. Alice embodies Challenging Preconceptions backward—she’s out to prove the Herdmans are exactly as awful as advertised.
Rehearsals keep tilting off-script. Imogene plays Mary as loud, bossy, and fiercely protective, barking at the Wise Men to back off. The Herdman Wise Men, including Leroy Herdman, ask what would happen if they tipped Herod off. The narrator has a jolt of clarity—“No Jesus . . . ever”—feeling the danger baked into the story. A practical crisis follows: no one will lend a baby to be Jesus with the Herdmans in the cast. Imogene casually offers to steal one from outside the supermarket; Mother, horrified, settles on a doll.
Chapter 6: The Dress Rehearsal Disaster
The final dress rehearsal collides with the church ladies’ pot-luck prep, and everything splinters. Costumes go missing. Imogene substitutes a heavy flower urn for the baby doll. The choir sings two different carols at once. Mother can’t impose order. Imogene refuses to remove large gold earrings—Gladys pierced her ears, and they might close. A naming debate breaks out. Imogene suggests “Bill,” and Ralph Herdman insists Joseph must have named the baby. Alice smugly lists Jesus’s formal titles; Imogene snaps, “My God! He’d never get out of the first grade if he had to write all that!” The minister’s wife drops a tray of silverware in shock.
A five-minute break drifts to fifteen. Imogene lights a cigar in the ladies’ room. Mrs. McCarthy smells smoke and calls the fire department. Sirens, firemen, sobbing baby angels, curious neighbors, and Reverend Hopkins in pajamas flood the church. The Herdmans, assuming they caused the trouble, slip away. In the kitchen, the applesauce cake burns to a crisp, and the church ladies explode.
The fallout is immediate. Alice’s mother weaponizes the notebook and launches a telephone campaign through every committee in town. Besieged, the reverend visits Mother and gently suggests canceling the pageant. Mother refuses: “Why, it’s going to be the best Christmas pageant we’ve ever had!” The narrator calls it Mother’s biggest lie yet—and admires her for it. The reverend fears no one will come; he’s wrong. The whole town plans to attend, not for inspiration, but to see what the Herdmans will do.
Character Development
These chapters sharpen each character’s arc as curiosity, defiance, and moral clarity clash onstage and off.
- Mother: Shifts from reluctant director to stubborn defender of the production and its unruly cast. Her refusal to cancel turns the pageant into a stand on principle.
- Imogene Herdman: Evolves from menace to interpreter. Her protective, no-nonsense Mary shows she grasps the danger and humanity of the story better than the rule-followers do.
- Alice Wendleken: Hardens into a moral antagonist. Her “spy pad” proves she values appearances and punishments over meaning and mercy.
- the Narrator: Her viewpoint widens; the Herdmans’ questions crack open the familiar tale until she feels its stakes—foreshadowing her Transformation.
Themes & Symbols
The Herdmans drag the story back to its core, illuminating The True Meaning of Christmas: poverty, fear, and the instinct to protect the vulnerable. Imogene’s Mary—loud, practical, and alert to danger—feels truer to a young mother in peril than the passive, porcelain version the church expects.
These chapters also test the community’s habits of judgment. The Herdmans’ moral outrage about Herod—and their fierce defense of Mary and Jesus—upend the town’s assumptions, pressing everyone to keep Challenging Preconceptions rather than clinging to them. Mother’s decision to proceed models Inclusion and Acceptance: the pageant belongs to the whole community, misfits included. The family conversation frames all of this through Perspective and Understanding: seeing the story “as if new” reveals its danger and tenderness.
Symbols:
- Alice’s Notepad: A ledger of bias. It catalogs petty misdeeds while missing the Herdmans’ genuine engagement and compassion.
- The Fire Alarm: No real blaze, but a figurative one erupts—chaos, conflict, and hard questions that scorch the church’s comfortable traditions. The burnt applesauce cake is its charred proof.
Key Quotes
“No Jesus . . . ever.” The narrator’s flash of dread reframes the nativity as a story of risk. By imagining the Wise Men betraying the child, she grasps what’s at stake beyond pageant costumes and carols.
“My God! He’d never get out of the first grade if he had to write all that!” Imogene’s crack after Alice reels off Jesus’s titles slices through piety to prioritize the human child at the center. Her irreverence exposes how formalism can bury meaning.
“Why, it’s going to be the best Christmas pageant we’ve ever had!” Mother’s defiance converts a doomed rehearsal into a promise. The line rallies the cast, challenges the congregation’s contempt, and sets a high bar the finale must meet.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters mark the peak of rising action: the private rehearsal mess explodes into a public spectacle, and the town shows up to witness it. The conflict hardens—Mother’s resolve versus the congregation’s outrage—while the Herdmans’ gritty reinterpretation moves from pointed questions to performance choices that demand attention. The stage is set for a transformative finale in Chapter 7, where Mother’s “best ever” claim must become true or collapse under the town’s glare.