This year I really wanted to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, it is really the first time Hadley is understanding holidays and I wanted her to understand why we really celebrate it. In our area there are two activities that I have loved for the last few years, one is a live nativity the local church down the street puts on every year and the other is the Creche exhibit that the LDS church puts on in Palo Alto. This year they happened to fall on the same very cold weekend!
It was so cold but we bundle up the girls and drove over the the live nativity. They had camels out in front and the girls were mesmerized.
The whole parking lot is set up to look like the inside of bethlehem at the time of Jesus's birth. There are stalls you can visit and actors that are in the stalls and roaming around as soldiers. The soldiers kinda scared the girls but they loved looking at all the other things to see.
They could see the different foods, they even let them make shekels out of clay (hadley carried hers around for weeks) and little bracelets.
About every half hour Joseph and Mary come through the little town on a donkey and make their way to the stable. They then have a few musical numbers. Hadley had the best seat in the house.
Elise said one last goodbye to the sheep on the way out. I love that they put this on every year and it is such a production!
The next night we went up to the creche exhibit. They have gorgeous displays from all over the world. The girls were not as interested walking around quietly this year as they had been the year before, and I was a little worried about all the breakables! We did get to see a few beautiful ones and talk about what they represent.
Luckily they had a kids section where they could make wise men crowns with sparkly jewels and other little crafts. They could dress up in costumes and they had a marionette show put on by some of the youth of the area that depicted the story of Christ's birth. It remains one of my favorite activities of the season. I hope in the future when I have more time I can volunteer, it really brings the spirit to the season. And contrary to her expression the girls had a wonderful time!
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