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A Christmas story is retold in Tahoe Basin

Andrew Cristancho
Sierra Sun
Emma Garrard/Sierra SunTamii Johnson and Dave Johnson play Mary and Joseph during a live nativity play outside Plumas Bank in Tahoe City Saturday.
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On Saturday evening Jesus was born in Tahoe City.

No, it was not the second coming.

On a damp and chilly Saturday evening, the Tahoe Christian Center re-enacted the Christian nativity story for the public in a Tahoe City parking lot. A group of actors performed three 15-minute pageants before a respectful audience of local residents and passersby.



Alpine resident Jack Brewer, 57, who attended the event with his visiting daughter from Los Angeles, said events like this the live nativity scene bring the community closer together.

Brewer is a member of the church and had friends in the performance, which featured a children’s choir, a narrator, nine actors and two live goats, one just 9 days old.



“Besides the singing and the message, the goats were as adorable as anything,” Brewer said after the 5 o’clock performance.

Also included in the show were an angel, three wise men, Mary and Joseph and three shepherds. Most accounts of the story of the birth of Jesus Christ come from the New Testament, and Church Pastor Richard Mesa said Saturday’s version came from the Gospel of Luke because of its rich detail.

An anonymous resident donated about $300 worth of redwood to the Christian Center based in Lake Forest Glen to help build the set, and all other help was donated by church members.

The short re-enactment had a spare, simple feel as cars whizzed by on Highway 28. An audience of about two dozen warmed themselves near a fire, while watching the volunteer actors make the nativity story come alive.

“It makes it feel like Christmas,” said Tamii Johnson of the setting during a break from playing the role of the Virgin Mary. “When Jesus was born, he wasn’t born in a church.”

After the performance, the crew and cast handed out hot chocolate and fresh baked goods to ward off the evening chill. Each family in the audience received a treat bag to take home with a Christmas ornament inside.

The players performed the previous weekend in Kings Beach and plan to organize other community events in the coming months, according to Mesa. This autumn the church organized a fall festival with games for the elementary school students at Tahoe Lake school, Mesa said.


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