journey to Bethlehem

[first published December 25, 2014; updated today]


It all started quite simply, well over a decade ago when Sugar was a toddler, and we used the figures of our nativity scene to act out the Bible story for her.  As Mary & Joseph made their long trip to Bethlehem, they stopped along the way to eat.  (We "stopped" with them, sharing raisins to ensure Sugar's rapt attention).

Each year since then, it's gotten a little more elaborate, until it has blossomed into an annual theatrical production - at least for mealtimes.

So every year now the children insist that we spend the day before Christmas "journeying" to Bethlehem.  I play "Mary," my Farmer plays "Joseph," and the children play our nieces and nephew, traveling in the same caravan en route to our ancestral city of Bethlehem, for the census.  Now that Sugar is nearly 17, however, she's more suited to play Mary than I am!  Time for a switch, maybe, and I can be an anonymous middle-aged aunty ....

The details vary from year to year, but most aspects of the journey are fairly constant:

We spread the blanket on the floor and lay out the food in the center.  We sit around the food in a circle, sharing from the common bowls (handmade pottery, or wood, if possible).  Sometimes Joseph (or, more rarely, Mary, who has also been known to fake pregnancy with a pillow) wears a plaid bathrobe to really get into character.  Conveniently, the children all have biblical names and it's only "Mommy" and "Daddy" which are discarded in favor of stage names.




Another part of our tradition is watching The Nativity Story movie throughout the day - just up until the point when Mary and Joseph reach Bethlehem, before they are shown to the stable.  Then Christmas Day, we finish the rest of it.  It's an excellent movie which I can't recommend enough, but in the early years we did mute and/or fast forward through the sections of it that would have overwhelmed our children (scenes with Herod's soldiers rampaging through Bethlehem to kill the baby boys, for instance; there is also a hanging that Mary & Joseph pass, and the taxation scene gets a little intense).  Watch with caution.  Another favorite, more child-friendly, is the gorgeous clay-mation The First Christmas.

As the years have passed, our "simple traveling peasant" fare has gotten a bit more substantial as the children have gotten larger and hungrier.  From the initial almonds, raisins, and bread, the menu has grown quite a bit.  I offer it here, in case anyone else wants a spark of an idea to ignite their own tradition.


Journey Menus
breakfast:  bread, curds (cottage cheese), dried or preserved fruit, milk, almonds.

lunch:  fish (tilapia or swai are inexpensive, and are tasty baked simply with a pat of butter), barley loaves, honey yogurt, olives, pistachios and grapes.

supper:  lentil stew, tortillas, plain yogurt, goat cheese [I also made risotto one year, since growing children cannot live on tortillas alone, and not everyone at this house had developed a taste for lentil stew yet.  Let's just call it poetic license, shall we?]


There are many possibilities for substitutions, and our menus vary a bit from year to year.  Dried fruits that could have come from that region of the world include raisins, dates*, apricots, and figs.  Fresh fruits include grapes and pomegranates.  Nuts could be almonds, hazelnuts, or pistachios.  Dairy products of all kinds would have been common.  Breads were made from barley or wheat, and other everyday foods might have included lentils or split peas, olives, fish, onions, garlic.  In recent years my girls have taken to straining greek yogurt through a cheesecloth to make a soft, fresh 'cheese'.  They sprinkle it with herbs and it looks quite authentic, to our eyes!  Come up with something else?  I'd love to hear about it!




Christmas Day Feast

After a day of eating "simple" foods in recognition of the difficulties of Mary and Joseph's journey, we pull out all the stops for Christmas day!  Breakfast is supplied in the stockings - granola bars, juice boxes, craisins, (and yes, probably some candy too!) - and lunch is normal fare, or journey leftovers.  [Maybe in another few years I'll manage to pull off the 'shebang' of my imagination:  cinnamon rolls for breakfast!  But for now I've got all I can handle with the 'journey'....]

For our supper we feast with a Moroccan dish called Lamb Tagine with Dates (adapted from Betty Crocker's New International Cookbook).  We've made this dish with lamb, beef, chicken, and venison, and it's always delicious.  I've followed the directions to the letter, from browning the meat to adding the dates in at the end, and I've thrown it all into a crockpot at the same time, and it's still always a hit.  I think this recipe is one of those rare ones that you just can't mess up.  Here's the all-at-the-same-time version:

Put into a crockpot:

3 lbs meat (lamb, venison, beef, or chicken all work just fine)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. saffron
2 cups water
1 T honey
1 cup pitted dates*, chopped (don't use your yummy Nuts.com varieties here; deglet noors will do nicely)

Cook on high 4-6 hours, or on low 8-10 hours.  Or whatever.  Crockpots are wonderfully flexible.  This year I put the meat in frozen around 11 a.m. and am hoping it will be done (on high) by 5pm. (I'll let you know if it's not!)

Serve with naan and millet or amaranth if you're having an energetic year.  If not (like me, most years) then plain rice and a vegetable will do fine.  I have some olives left over from yesterday that I'll put out, and we'll have pomegranates and clementines and dates* (the yummy ones!) for dessert, along with some completely inauthentic Christmas cookies that my industrious children made with my mother one lovely day while I was out.

We've also tried lamb a year or two, with excellent results.  This meat is not only authentic, but also beautifully symbolic, since Jesus is the Lamb of God, sacrificed to take away our sins.  It's also a costlier meat, which reminds us of how costly it was for Jesus, who, "being in very nature God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness" to give up His place in heaven in order to come to earth. (Philippians 2:6-7)



















Merry Christmas, & may God bless us, every one!


* a word on dates:  Your health food store may have medjools (which are a lot tastier than the deglet noor variety usually sold for baking), and other varieties if you're lucky.  Otherwise, Nuts.com is a reliable and cost-effective choice for barhi, jumbo medjool, khadrawy, and halawi varieties.  They also have great customer service and a delightful sense of fun.

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