This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 12:13 am and is filed under Bay Area Backroads, Holidays, Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Santa Clara’s First Baptist Church put on their annual journey to the Biblical city of Bethlehem this year from December 6 - December 10, 2007, and we were lucky enough to attend this week. (info) Most of you know already that I’m not an overly religious person, and I was extremely reluctant to take the kids down to this thing thinking that it would be some hokey display of religion. Fortunately, I made the effort, because the quality of this event was beyond anything that I could have imagined. They’ve decorated over 40,000 square feet with actual-size buildings and bridges and plan on over 5,000 visitors each night between 6:30 and 9:00PM.
First off, to put everything into perspective, they had a pair of real camels, in addition to a mule, some sheep, and an entire representation of the city of Bethlehem. Add to that the Roman army and method acting that they put into it and I found myself awestruck. Rarely do you find something of this caliber for pay, and this was a free event tha tthey’ve been hosting for almost ten years. It’s difficult to thank the church enough for this contribution, and I am hopeful that my children will remember the evening. I know that I will.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a night near a church without a slip of the tongue or two and this one came from Sofi who announced fairly loudly during the birth of Jesus that she could see “the baby Cheeze-It.” She was on my shoulders at the time and I nearly dropped her to the ground I was laughing so hard.
In addition to the great acting and recreation they have a complete market that includes crafts, wine tasting, jewelry making and more. It’s definitely something not to be missed and I hope that we will continue to visit this wonderful event every year to enjoy over and over again.
Thanks to Stella and “Fross” for inviting us to this great event and joing us. The girls are very thankful!
Papa
December 12th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Very cool event! Had not heard of this before. I’ll have to spread the word to some friends who will probably love to go next year.