The spirit of first-century Bethlehem came to Holy Family Parish in Inverness the Sunday before Christmas, Dec. 21.

The parish religious education program and other parish staff and volunteers transformed a multipurpose space on the  campus into an ancient marketplace with tents where children could grind spices from the time period, engage in metal work and pottery making as herb and spices grinding, metal working, pottery, among the activities. Young people and adults in costumes assisted them.

There were even young people dressed as Roman soldiers, who approached visitors to collect taxes. Mary and Joseph rounded out the event as part of a living Nativity with live animals.

The parish began holding the Bethlehem Marketplace for 30 years, but took a break during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In previous years, the marketplace was  only for children in the religious education program, but this year the parish included students from Holy Family Academy, said Father Terry Keehan, pastor of Holy Family.

“It’s very catechetical experience,” Keehan said. “So people get to see some basic things about what a marketplace looked like at the time.”

The family faith program hosts two other festivals during the year — one for All Saints Day and one for back-to-school.

“This particular one is perhaps one of the most popular ones because it’s the most tactile,” Keehan said.

The market drew participants from all generations.

“We have grandparents here with their kids and their grandkids,” he said. “There are parents who get roped into dressing up as different characters. And obviously the children in the program take a major role in this. So it’s really an entire generation experience. We’re proud of that.”

Bringing multiple generations of families together is important to the parish and ties into its monthly FM Mass, or Family Mass, where they encourage families to worship together.

“Those Masses are so popular that we’re finding that other events like this that are drawing more and more of the adults and more of the generational experience in a very simple way. It’s wonderful,” Keehan said.

The whole parish chipped in to help put the event together, said Karen McHale, family faith formation coordinator for the parish.

And the kids were excited.

“They really like to participate in the crafts. They especially like to blend all those spices together that you would never use on food, but they like the smells and it’s lovely,” she said. “And they learn a lot about the Nativity story.”