Holiday at Home Pageant

A Holiday Pageant at Home

A few days before the Christmas holiday, a large family decides to put on a home-made play as part of their holiday together. The mother writes the play, and the children practice it. When they are ready, they enact first a prologue and then the play.

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Countdown to Christmas 2021 movies 51

TCM Sunday Silent Night with the Christmas Past: compilation of silent films. This short is over 120 years old but still incredible.
Viewed on TCM Silent Sunday Nights

A couple of creepy kids perform "a play" on Christmas Eve for their creepy parents at the turn of the century.

It's creepy.
Video footage of a family performing I am assuming Christmas songs but no sound?? I am aware this is 1901 but it just feels like I'm watching someone's old family videos. Interesting I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️
I don't think this really does a good job of conveying much, and I don't put that on just the filming. There's some issues with that, but at the same time this also feels like an example of where the more modern score that's been added to it just doesn't fit the action as the music played during what appears to be a song of some sort doesn't really match the tempo the song seems to be at. It feels just too dissonant to see how much the kids are moving vs how slow the music is going.
Available on Kanopy as part of a feature length presentation called "A Christmas Past."

Short and sweet, the children put on a little play for their parents, ala Pyramus and Thesbe from The Midsummer Night's dream, while the prologue might not be understandable with its large gestures and the plot absurdly simple, we are talking about a very early silent film here. (This version has music, although music unlike what would have been heard at the time.)
Nothing special, but close watching shows the fun and love of the participants.
If you've ever read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, you know that Victorian-Era families often entertained themselves during the holidays by writing and performing their own plays or pageants at home. That experience is basically what this very early, short, and crude film is trying to recreate. It's broken up into four parts: the mother writing the play, two daughters reciting a prologue, all four children acting it out, and the father rewarding the mother for her work with a kiss. As a glimpse into a now vanished past, it's interesting, but it's not very entertaining. I'm no lip reader, so I have no idea what the play itself is about. None of the performers appear to be professionals, either:…
A strange little film for sure, mostly because so little is understood about who and what this was made for. I don't think it's necessarily a straightforward home movie, because I think there's intentional comedy in the girls' lackluster performance of the prologue, as with the preposterousness of the play itself. However, it's also pretty rough around the edges, with "The Author's Reward" section beginning with what I assume is a conversation between the actress and someone off-set, before she assumes her position for the start of the scene. It's odd, but pretty sweet, and rather softly funny.
If it weren't for the intertitles telling us so, this wouldn't be a Christmas film. It's really only about a family putting together a play and acting it out. A bit hard to follow, but they look happy together at least.
This appears to be home movie footage of a family with five children, who put on a "show" for the audience (perhaps presumed to be distant family members who will want to see the children in action). On the whole, I found this a rather depressing image of family life of the period. There are few smiles, and the kids sometimes look downright miserable. When the mother watches the two girls singing and dancing, it mostly seems to be with disapproval, except once in a while when they manage a coordinated movement, and she turns to look at father, who smiles. Her life seems to consist of hours of drudgery paid with occasional fleeting moments of affection from her husband.…
I started watching the holiday silent film compilation A Christmas Past on TCM and my kid was surprisingly so into it. I never want to force entertainment on him and he likes plenty of weird stuff I don't care about (like, for example, ASMR videos that tour Hogwarts at Halloween even though he barely knows what Harry Potter is), but I try to show him lots of stuff I want to see and find out what sticks. When we watched this, he put his head in my lap and said "I love old movies" and oh, my heart! 🥺
everyone in this is long dead, merry christmas
Daily Decade Films | A Letterboxd History 2021

A hastily put together short showcasing the various activities that go into Christmas Eve, cooped up on a small stage with people clearly put off my the camera that makes for an unimpressive reenactment.