A Night in Bethlehem

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Tonight our ward celebrated Christmas with "A Night in Bethlehem." It was a great way to reflect on the Savior's birth and enjoy a festive atmosphere with our ward family. It was also fun to see what everyone's bathrobes look like--a nice change of pace from Sunday suits and dresses! It was almost like "Wear Your Jammies to Church Day" (which isn't a half-bad idea, come to think of it). Anyway, I know I definitely learned a few things, not the least of which was that I need to buy a trendier meridian-of-time wardrobe--including a few fun scarves--in case we ever do this activity again. I'm eager to ditch the dishtowel look; NONE of the Bethlehem babes are wearing dishtowel hats this season. And I'm not a great historian or anything, but I'm pretty sure that people didn't walk around wearing their tablecloths, either.

But having said that, I thought Bethany, our little shepherdess, looked pretty darn cute! Good thing we have her to redeem our family image.



Here's how the evening worked: We all got a "decree" on our doorsteps commanding us to come to "Bethlehem" to be taxed. When we arrived, we got a little bag of "money" (i.e. salt-dough coins, washers, etc.) to spend at the "marketplace" set up in the cultural hall. The hall was all decked out in white Christmas lights and different booths were set up--booths with cheese, meat, bread, fruit, etc. We got to wander around and purchase different foodstuffs to eat, then we sat down on blankets on the floor with our families. (This arrangement worked really well, because our ward is huge and tables and chairs wouldn't have accommodated everybody.)



The pictures are kind of dim, sorry. Just imagine a really fun atmosphere because that's what it was! The lighting was great and James had put together a soundtrack that made it sound like we were truly in a Bethlehem marketplace--or at least how you'd imagine a Bethlehem marketplace sounding--or at least how they sound in the movie, from whence James burned the soundtrack.

My parents were in charge of the "storytellers" booth. I think this picture is hilarious because of their expressions:



And there were lots of fun tables with yummy food:





I'm not sure what Bethany and James were doing in this picture, exactly. It looks like they're grazing. Perhaps they were pretending to be sheep for a minute or something? If so, kudos to them for getting into the spirit of things:



After everyone had finished eating, the Primary children sang "Away in a Manger" and another Primary song, which was nice. Children's voices are so sweet!



But don't bother looking for Bethany in there; she refused to go up there and sing, little stinker. (I really hope Santa wasn't watching her behavior tonight or it's COAL FOR SURE.) Anyway, we all sang a couple of Christmas hymns as a big group while watching "Mary" and "Joseph" and their babe:



And that was really neat, because even though I knew in my mind that those people were Bryan and Cherie and their little son, at that moment they represented the holy family and it was really cool to watch them while we sang those hymns.

The evening then ended on that spiritual note. We stuck around and helped clean up for another hour or so, because that's what Christians do in ANY age. Even when the Church was in its original beginnings, I'm sure that they cleaned up after ward parties. (At least we have the benefit of paper plates nowadays--those early saints probably washed a million wooden bowls after each event! I feel for them, and I feel for their Relief Society presidents who had to figure out what to doeth with all of the leftover foodeth.)

Anyway, it was a great night and I give major props to Brother and Sister Brown who went to SO much work to plan everything. Thanks to everyone who worked hard in bringing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" to life for us tonight!