Last weekend my husband, son and I attended an event at our church called A Night in Bethlehem. We usually tend to avoid large gatherings like this one, but we had talked about it, read the flyer and decided to give it a try.
When we arrived, there were several people dressed as shepherds herding some live sheep on the little hill between the parking lot and the entrance. Michael was a bit scared of this but agreed to walk past them once he was assured the sheep were on ropes and being held securely. 🙂
Upon entering the building and seeing all the people milling around, Michael became quite upset and started demanding to go to his class. I took him to a quiet corner and tried to convince him to at least check it out, but he was adamant that he wasn’t going to do it.
Leaving him with my husband, I went off to see what I could come up with to get him to participate and, if nothing else, to at least see what I would be missing (cue pity party here). I found a friend who was part of the volunteer staff and who immediately offered to help. We decided to see if allowing him to do the crafts in a regular classroom instead of with the crowds in the auditorium would be okay with him.
As we were walking back to the entrance to present our idea, lo and behold, Bob and Michael were on their way in to find me! I was informed by my son that we were solving a mystery and had to look for clues, so we had better get started. As we went off to get dressed up for our family portrait, Bob said to me that it must have been divine inspiration because he had no idea how he came up with that plan!
We ended up having a wonderful time going through the Bethlehem marketplace, making a variety of crafts and collecting little wooden pieces for a manger scene, finishing up with a visit to the stable where we saw the Baby Jesus asleep on the hay.
Hmm, maybe next summer we can give the big family picnic a try.
P.S. If you’d like to see a few more pictures from our adventure, I have a small slideshow over at my blog.
Trish can be found here every Friday in addition to hosting Try This Tuesday. You can also find Trish at her blog, Another Piece of the Puzzle.