Most people are familiar with the tradition of reenacting the Christmas story with traditional nativity scenes.
Anyone who has visited the Ajijic plaza in December has witnessed the life-sized nativity scene in the center gazebo, as well as many other places around Lake Chapala. This year, the tradition is coming to life in a new way—through a live, one-man musical telling the story of the first nativity reenactment in 1224.
Most people are familiar with St. Francis of Assisi, if only through the millions of bird baths around the world proclaiming his love of the animal kingdom. But few people realize that St. Francis was the man responsible for starting the tradition of reenacting the birth of Jesus through the nativity tradition. The year was 1224 in the tiny town of Greccio, Italy. After visiting Bethlehem a few years earlier, St. Francis became obsessed with the incarnation of Christ and after receiving a vision in a cave near Greccio, was inspired to create his own version. His goal was to help people have a deeper experience of Jesus’s birth, and it became so popular that the idea swept through Europe and then the world.
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