Christmas fun with friends...

On Saturday we had our friends the Goltz family over for a pizza dinner, some gingerbread house (graham crackers, really) decorating and then the Bethlehem walk near our home! We had such fun getting together and enjoying some fellowship! Here the girls show off their houses. These are so much more manageable and more eatable than gingerbread houses. They work the same except we used graham crackers for personal sized homes and then used vanilla frosting and candies to decorate. They were SO cute and yummy too!!!

Then we bundled up and headed over to the Bethlehem Walk about a mile from our home. It was COLD...but the kids huddled together to get warm!

The girls get stopped by the Roman Centurion...they look scared, right? Look closely in the background and you will see Shad with a fabulous scarf on! It was his daughter Lily's and she didn't want it...only real men can pull off pink AND pom poms!!

There were lots of awesome booths to stop at and fun activities to do. If you have never been to a Bethlehem Walk, it is a small town set up by churches that make it seem as if you were really in Bethlehem the night of Christ's birth. We LOVE it!! It really helps kids to see and feel how humble Christ's location really was.

Here Lily and Anli grind real olives in an olive press. The olive oil drips down into containers...so cool!

Caleb and Virginia give it a whirl!

They stop by the perfume station and get some homemade lotions that smelled so good.

The fish monger is always a mixed reaction booth. They are always the most fun...but the stinkiest booth! All that "fresh" fish is rather stinky to us!

The night always ends at the stable with a telling of Christ's birth. It is wonderful!

The kids get a front row look at baby Jesus!

We had a wonderful time and headed to another Back to Bethlehem the next weekend with friends from out of town. They are both so different...yet the message of JOY is still the same!

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