This is a guest post written by Alli Swords, who lives in Lancaster County with her four children and husband, and who loves to write!
We had wanted take our children (ages 8, 6, 4, 2) to a live nativity this year, so when we saw the one at the Willow Street Mennonite Church being offered, we jumped at the chance to attend. We attended Saturday evening (opening night) and the evening could not have gone more smoothly!
The live nativity ran from 5:30 to 8:30 and it said in the event notes that light refreshments would be served before each 1/2 presentation. Since it was about a 35 minute drive for us, we decided arrive at 5:00pm. We pulled in around 4:55pm and people were just starting to arrive. We parked easily and were met by friendly people who showed us the way in. We stood outside the event room for about a minute before they allowed us to enter…handing each person in my family a purple ticket. This ticket, they said, would get us into the first 1/2 presentation of the night.
We had about 20 minutes until the live nativity would start, so we ate cookies, drank hot chocolate, and the kids colored, worked on word mazes, and sticker nativity books the church provided for them. It was just the right amount of time to not feel rushed!
By around 5:20, I would say this room was already filled and the first and second 1/2 presentation time slots were filled! Right at 5:30pm, they had everyone with purple tickets come to another room. This is the only part of the night we felt rushed because we should have whisked the kids away from the activity table sooner. We were rushing to get jackets on, take last sips of cocoa, and clean up our table. Oops.
There was a small skit in this room, followed by a small skit in the sanctuary. From there, we walked (transportation was provided for those that needed it) across the street, down a muddy, puddled graveled path to a beautiful barn! After another small skit by the fire, we were led inside to an absolutely beautiful barn filled with lots of real live animals! Baby Jesus was even a REAL baby!!!
They had someone play a live song on guitar and the atmosphere was amazing. At the conclusion of this final skit, we boarded a large wagon pulled by a tractor to head back to the church. We arrived back at the church around 6:10pm.
I highly recommend going to see this Live Nativity! It continues Sunday and Monday evening. My very busy two and four-year-old were “entertained” the entire time and my older kids really soaked in the message. The actors were excellent, the costumes great, and the story–well, that was perfect.
Just a couple of notes to make your experience great…dress warm! The walk to the barn, and even inside the barn, was cold. The walk to the barn was muddy…wear old clothes and boots. The timing, especially for those with young children, was a little hard. The kids thought it was hilarious that we had cookies for dinner and a pizza-to-go for “snack.” GET THERE EARLY!!! When we pulled out of the parking lot, it was FILLED!! I was so glad we got there a little before 5pm.
A lady from the church told me they do this every other year, so if you miss this year, hopefully you can catch it again in 2020. I know we will!
You can find out more about this live nativity in this post on Lancaster County Live Nativities. It’s the last listing in the post.
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