a visit to Bethlehem

A church in our area has a walk through Bethlehem and living nativity every year. We decided to take Finn for the first time this year since, at almost 3, he's old enough to start understanding why we celebrate Christmas.

Finn had an ideal spot on daddy's shoulders.

We were able to walk through the recreated town of Bethlehem and see how it might have been during that time.

We paid our taxes to the collector.

And saw the various day-laborers at work.

We saw some merchants keeping shop, selling pottery and oil.

Of course, the nativity area was too crowded to get any good pictures, but Finn was intrigued asking every 3 seconds, "is that baby Jesus?"

At the end of our trek through Bethlehem, Finn ate some Moravian cookies (a local favorite) under the lit Christmas trees. It was a special time, indeed.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. ~ Luke 2:4-7