For this COVID Christmas, live Nativities go on — safely — ‘to bring hope and joy back’
Could be the pandemic interrupted the supply chain, or maybe it’s a result of high seasonal demand. But there appears to be a camel shortage.
It hit Raleigh’s Mount Moriah Baptist Church sometime in October, after Pastor Michael Tolar asked if — since COVID-19 had forced the cancellation of the popular hanging of the greens service, along with so many other holiday traditions — the congregation might consider putting on a little live Nativity.
“I said, ‘I just want to do a manger scene. One scene, out in front of the church. Keep it real simple and people can just drive through,’” Tolar recalls.
The response was immediate and enthusiastic. “It’s like when people say they’re going to have a really small wedding and then there are 300 people on the guest list. It just started growing,” the pastor said.
On Sunday, when Mount Moriah’s Drive-Through Living Nativity opens to the public for its 6-8 p.m. one-night run, there will be five or six scenes, including the manger setup with a real donkey and sheep. No camel, unless Tolar scores one by then. “I continue to ask everyone I meet if they have a friend with a camel,” Tolar said. “So far no camels have appeared.”
About 100 volunteers from the church — nearly a third of the congregation — will be on hand, whether dressed as shepherds or wise men or citizens of the Little Town of Bethlehem, to direct traffic or hand out goodie bags.
“We may have 40 little angels out there, I don’t know,” Tolar said. “It’s got kind of a homespun feel to it, where the children can be involved and everybody has a place they can participate.”
Mount Moriah hasn’t put on a big event like this in at least 15 years, Tolar said. Why launch one now, in the midst of a pandemic?
“I think because the message of the gospel is good news even in a pandemic,” Tolar said. “The message of Christ is good news. And we need good news right now.”
A narrative celebrated and retold
Most people know the story referenced by the painted plywood or inflatable Nativity scenes appearing now in homeowners’ front yards, or the carved tabletop models being pulled down from attics with the other Christmas decorations.
The narrative from the books of Luke and Matthew in the Bible is that Caesar Augustus ordered a census of the Roman world, and that Joseph traveled to Bethlehem to register. He took with him Mary, his wife-to-be, who was in the late days of her pregnancy.
When they got to Bethlehem, the couple was unable to find a room and took lodging in a stable, where their baby, Jesus, was born. Mary wrapped the child in cloth and put him to bed in a manger, or feed trough.
The Bible says that Jesus’s birth was foretold by prophets and that when it happened, an angel appeared and announced it to shepherds tending their flocks in nearby fields. The shepherds traveled to Bethlehem to see for themselves, as did “wise men” from eastern lands.
However familiar, the story of the messiah’s humble birth is celebrated and retold throughout the Christmas season. Live Nativity scenes are a popular medium. They combine theatrical grandeur, homemade costumes of flannel and tinsel, and, because the reenactments often include children in leading roles and animals on the hoof, the charm of the impromptu.
Salem Baptist Church in Apex has put on a live Nativity every year since 1991 — until now. The church canceled its 2020 Journey to Bethlehem because so much of the event is held inside that it wasn’t possible to keep the 120 volunteers who put on the program and the 4,000 people who attend it over several nights each December far enough apart to prevent the spread of illness.
“Next year, we hope to be up and running again,” said Nita Green in the church office.
This would have been the 35th anniversary of Ephesus Baptist Church’s Drive-Thru Living Nativity, which the congregation regards as its gift to the Raleigh community. It takes more than 150 people to put on the event. Work usually starts in mid-November with retrieving the sets from storage and making repairs.
Senior Pastor Greg Templin was sad the church couldn’t find a way to safely hold the event in 2020, but he found a tinfoil-silver lining.
“Kind of on the positive side, selfishly for me, is that for folks who are usually so insanely busy this time of year, by not having so many of these kinds of things, we’re kind of able to look forward more to peace and quiet,” Templin said.
Templin said he and his wife will be able to attend the Historic Oakwood Candlelight Tour for the first time ever this year.
In 2021, Templin hopes, Ephesus will have a renewed enthusiasm for the Living Nativity after having been forced to miss it.
A changed tradition for 2020
The first time Ron Byrd went to Pleasant Hill Christian Church’s Drive-Thru Nativity, he was a child growing up near the Benson church. Now he’s senior pastor and church volunteers are standing up the Bethlehem Inn and other sets for the 40th annual production.
“We knew we were going to do it, we just had to figure out how,” Byrd said.
For 2020, planners jettisoned one of the most cherished elements of the event: the post-drive-through invitation to the church fellowship hall for refreshments and conversation. Gathering limits and rising case numbers scratched that part of the festivities off the holiday list.
But the 10 scenes that tell the story of Christ’s birth, life and death are taking shape as usual in the woods and fields across the street from the church, on land whose owners have lent its use every Christmas season through the decades.
The congregation of Pleasant Hill has shrunk from its heyday, Byrd said, so it relies more than ever on the help of community volunteers to construct and man the displays and sync the recorded music, all of which draw up to 650 cars over the course of the three-night event.
Guests will remain in their cars and have no contact with any of the players or volunteers, Byrd said. Each scene is physically — even visually — distanced from the next, and actors from different households will be kept safely apart.
“The community wanted this, for one thing,” Byrd said. “People were calling and saying, ‘Y’all are going to do this, aren’t you?’
“We feel like so many things are being canceled, this is something that can be done safely and people will have an outlet to enjoy some family time at Christmas,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe some of the places people come from. Many drive an hour or two just to come and do this.”
Pleasant Hill’s Nativity will include live animals, except for the camel. Some years ago, Byrd said, the church borrowed the camel mascot once associated with Campbell University near Lillington, but the dromedary was not in a holiday mood.
“That didn’t work out for us,” Byrd said. “Now we just have a camel cutout.”
Mount Zion United Methodist Church, south of Garner, is getting ready for its “Why Christmas? A Drive-Thru Nativity Experience,” to be held Saturday evening. Sarah Beth Wood, next generations minister for the church, said this is a new program to take the place of annual events canceled because of COVID-19.
Travelers through the displays will see depictions of the Christmas story as well as of Jesus’s death and resurrection. There will be music and a Christmas tree forest, with evergreens signifying God’s undying love.
“This is a time for those in our church to share Jesus’s love and his light with the world,” Wood said. “We felt that we needed to do something to bring hope and joy back to people for them to still be able to experience God’s love.”
‘Our Christmas card to the community’
Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church of Raleigh will hold its Live Nativity on Dec. 12, but without the gathering on the grounds for hot chocolate and cider that has happened in years past. For 2020, visitors must remain in their cars.
Matt Collins and his wife, Anna, who are helping to organize the event, say the Nativity is as much fun for members of the congregation who participate in it as it is for those who drive through it.
“We have people who look forward to it every year,” Matt Collins said.
Working with the live animals, he said, is especially fun. This year’s event will feature donkeys, sheep, goats, a cow and, Collins said, “We do have a camel.”
It was a complicated transaction, maybe not unlike those that took place in the ancient Bethlehem marketplace. Collins knew a guy, who has since died, who knew a guy, who knew a guy.
Eventually, Collins reached a farmer who keeps camels on his land in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and could trailer one to Raleigh for the evening.
“So we paid a little extra to do that,” Collins said.
The event, he said, “Almost ignites the Christmas season for the church a little bit. Everybody gets excited about it. Everybody looks forward to it.
“One person in our congregation said it’s like our Christmas card to the community. It’s a way to share the good news that Jesus was born for us all, to give light to the community.”
If you go
At least four Triangle churches will hold drive-through living Nativity programs this Christmas season. All are free and open to the public and will observe social-distancing guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Here are the places, dates and times, weather permitting:
▪ Mount Zion United Methodist Church, 15772 N.C. Highway 50, Garner, will hold its “Why Christmas? A Drive-Thru Nativity Experience,” on Saturday, Dec. 5, from 5-7 p.m.
▪ Mount Moriah Baptist Church, 3000 E. Garner Road, Raleigh, will hold is Drive-Through Living Nativity on Sunday, Dec. 6 from 6-8 p.m..
▪ Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church, 9050 Strickland Road, Raleigh, will hold its Live Nativity Scene on Saturday, Dec. 12, from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
▪ Pleasant Hill Christian Church, 929 Pleasant Hill Church Rd., Benson, will hold its Drive-Thru Nativity on Dec. 16, 17 and 18 from 7-9 p.m. each night.
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
