visiting baby Jesus

Dennis had been asking and asking and finally tonight was the night to go and see the live nativity. We opted for the Living Christmas Walk at Goosepond Park here in town rather than braving the frigid weather farther north (where it is a bigger event and therefore a longer walk). The production here was very nicely done but Dennis exhibited little patience for the pre-baby part of the story. Once we arrived at the place where we met Joseph building a house, Dennis insisted that he wanted to go into the house because he was sure baby Jesus was in there. We told him he couldn't and he loudly wailed "but I want to see baby Jesus!!!". He continued to say this at every different 'scene' we walked past. It became hard to hear the actors over his commentary. We finally arrived at the nativity scene and he was delighted. He announced to everyone that "there is baby Jesus! Is he hungry? Mary needs to feed him, and he looks cold!". And then "look at that donkey, Mommy, LOOK! Did he come to see baby Jesus? Where are the Wise Men?". I have no idea what we were told about the birth at that particular scene, but I enjoyed Dennis' excitement over it all. He liked seeing the shepherds and angels in the next scene (they had a campfire!) and the Wise Men with King Herod in the one after that (though he said "there's that mean king that wants to hurt baby Jesus"), but then he told us he wanted to go back and play with baby Jesus.

At the end of our walk, he cried and didn't want hot chocolate. He said "I'm hungry--I want barbecue" during the last two scenes and as we walked back to the car began to repeat his desire for barbecue over and over. He has never asked for barbecue before and I'm not sure what prompted this, but we stopped at the barbecue place and ate there. He told everyone "I went to see baby Jesus--he wanted barbecue too". He was almost too excited to go home and get in bed, but we convinced him. It was a very nice holiday family outing.