Candlelight Carols... A Live Nativity

I clearly remember being a part of several live nativities growing up in Alaska in which we bundled up in all of our winter gear, and then wrapped a king sized bed sheet over top of everything to appear as a frosty angel or shivering shepherd.  This year we had a slightly different experience participating in Candlelight Carols with a local church in Thailand.  Their intended Joseph bowed out of the role when he realized how many lines he was going to have to say, and somehow Mike ended up taking over the role.  He says he was "voluntold" and that may be true, but it was a fun experience regardless. 

This nativity was played out by candlelight under a huge raintree at a local golf course. Here's a glimpse of the tree in daylight. You can imagine how magical it looked at night with candles just shining here and there to illuminate the branches. The tree is about 150 years old, which is definitely old, but makes me feel bad for those Alaskan black spruce who have persevered in growing for the same length of time, and just don't get the same sense of respect and magnificence from their life's growth. 

The bonus of the play was getting to hang out with a super cute "baby Jesus" before and during the play. 

My job was to make sure to make sure he was well fed and happy before he was smuggled into the manger where his key role was to live up to the song lyrics "no crying he makes..." He did a great job! Both Jesus and Joseph, that is...

One thing that's hard to do is to take pictures at a very dimly lit event, so you'll just have to imagine the ambiance as the nativity story was played out with many young children having the thrill of twirling through the lawn as singing angels and adoring shepherds. After awhile there were many young children on the move with lit candles, so it was a small miracle that no fires were lit. "Joseph" did witness a wise man help to stamp out one out of control candle held by a young shepherd before it burst the tinder dry stable into flames.

All in all, it was a delightful event, and "Joseph" is already missing his 1st century attire.