Shortly after I got married, the Mr. and I attended a church that had a Living Christmas Story. Around September or October, church members began transforming the grounds to look like different scenes from the book of Luke. Then, for one week every December, visitors could drive slowly through, magically transported to long-ago Bethlehem.
The year the church came up with the plans, someone who knew someone was able to procure, on loan, costumes from Hollywood. I can’t remember the movie the costumes were originally used in, but it was one of the famous ones…perhaps the Ten Commandments. Talented ladies in the church made replicas of them before returning the originals.
Yeah…God working, eh?
The scenes included Mary and the Annunciation, The angels’ appearance to shepherds in the field, the inn, the Nativity, and lastly the empty Cross.
Church members volunteered to be silent actors…some as the major characters and others as the regular citizens of town.
Driving through was an incredible experience. It was as if you dropped in at a few key moments of time. Nobody acted as if you were there. You were invisible.
While driving through was fun, even better was participating in it.
I had the privilege of being tapped to be Mary at the Annunciation. It’s hard to describe the emotions that ran through me as “Gabriel” and I pantomimed the scene. I tried to imagine what Mary must have been feeling when she heard she would be with child.
I was blessed to play Mary two different Christmas seasons. The second time, I was pregnant with Rooster. That was even more special. There I was, babe inside, playing the part of our Lord’s mother.
Putting on the costume made me feel different. People treated me with a gentleness, even though they “knew” it was me. Strange, I know. I remember that, like most pregnant women, I got to the point where I really had to pee. All traffic was stopped, the town’s large gates closed, so that I could take a potty break, with someone assisting me with the costume.
This is one of the most special memories I have of Christmas. It really put my focus where it needed to be. The birth of a Savior and the awareness of what a unselfish act of love God displayed.
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