Bethlehem, brought to you in AUTO pictures

I so don't know what I'm doing with my camera. So, please take that into consideration, when viewing this-here post. 

Okay, set-up complete. 

I saw someone on Facebook, talking about a local church that puts on a live Nativity, and thought 'hey, Paul's going to be gone tonight, I should take the kids!'

And so I did! I loaded up the kids, trekked them out in the rain, programed my camera to AUTO, and made the most of it!

We've never taken the kids to a live nativity, so they were clueless as to what I was referring to.

But once they started seeing stuff, they kind of captured the idea.  In fact, the Roman soldiers were freaking them out a little, and I think they were worried we might actually REENACT it at any moment. Which BTW, I would totally be down for.

But we wouldn't be doing any acting, instead just trying to get a glimpse of when our Savior was born.

Oh, and this kid totally doesn't belong to us, but it was super-busy, and I couldn't get a clear shot. I briefly thought about telling the kid to move, but I thought it not appropriate. So, there you go.

But you know, we sort of did reenact it a little bit, because these people were in serious character. Just chatting away, asking us if we had heard of the birth, which totally threw the kids.

Then they invited us into their shops to look around, at which point,  Hope honestly started to shop. Concept still so very lost, so we moved on.

See the rain? It was really starting to pick up, so we started to hustle it through Bethlehem.

We had a baby to find.

And there He was.

And when I stood there and thought about it, and took it in for a few minutes, I started to tear up! You know, just the thought of him being a baby, and poor Mary, well, it was just one of those moments.  And if I would have stood there much longer I probably would have started to belt out, Mary did you know?

But Pierce brought me back to reality, and we headed into a tent to listen to some Bethlehem peeps sing carols.

And enjoy ourselves a cup of hot chocolate, and eat some yummy cookies.

We saw the baby Jesus, we ran into friends, we drank hot chocolate and ate cookies, we sang carols, and Hope pouted. EVENING COMPLETE!

Another fun Christmas memory made.