Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Preparing for a Special Christmas Program

A lot of planning went into preparing 300 hand-made invitations for ward members to give their friends inviting them to the ward Christmas program December 22. They were invited to fast to help them know who to invite.
    The invitations were prepared by a large group of women: Achievement Day girls, Young Women, and Relief Society  sisters who got together one evening to paste, paint, and cut paper for this many invitations. It was like a beehive where everyone contributed to the honey being made.
   After that, text was prepared by Judy Wilcox and her husband Mark.  This is one of their hidden talents. These are some of the invitations:

   The Sister Missionaries showed an 18-minute film which has just be released by the Church and members are asked to share. It is called "The Christ Child" and tells the familiar story of Christ's birth--but in a surprisingly new and meaningful way.  It is hoped that those who see the film will be willing to share it.  Help celebrate the true meaning of Christmas by sharing and gathering with others.
    Above is an image from the film.  The directors tried to present all people in the video as real people, in extraordinary  circumstances.  "We tried to strip away a lot of the pageantry," the director said. All the dialogue is in Aramaic which is more historically accurate and allows for the dialogue to not detract from the story as it is recorded.
Records tell us all of the shepherds are not males.  Tending sheep was done by the family so there are women and girls in the story.  At one point a special moment occurs when a shepherd girl smiles at Mary, and Mary smiles back.
Mary and Joseph did not travel to Bethlehem alone.  There was a small group of people who made the journey together.
    Jesus was three years old when the wise men found him. It doesn't explain where they came from or why it took them so long to embark on their journey, but they were clearly men who knew and understood the prophecies and signs of His coming and they had come to find this Child.

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