Last week, pilgrims in Hancock went looking for a manger holding a baby whose arrival was attracting a surprising mix of people, including nearby poor shepherds and wealthy Magi from the east. It was also attracting the interest of the local king, Herod, who seemed intent on recruiting agents to bring him knowledge of the child’s whereabouts. None did.
The crowds were considerable, owing to the census underway by command of the Roman occupiers. In a flashback to the pandemic, the inn was closed, this time for renovations. The innkeeper spent the afternoon out in front, deflecting the mob, already inconvenienced and angry over the trek home to be counted and taxed. But there were plenty of smiles and a few embraces as old friends and neighbors encountered each other along the familiar pathways, shared stories and warmed themselves by the shepherds’ fire on the town common where they abided, as usual, with their sheep.
Get enough pilgrims together, and the talk will turn to weather, which it did, especially as the snow started to fall. The shadows lengthened, and the afternoon got colder, but everyone agreed it felt like Christmas. They paid the tax collector, rolled with the rejection of the innkeeper, bowed to Herod, inquired among the shepherds, but finally made it to the small stable with the manger and the baby in his mother’s arms, where it was Christmas.
This was the annual Hancock Congregational Church pageant, “Journey to Bethlehem.” It celebrates the season and, in no small way, life in a New England town. Everyone is welcome. Anyone can be included. The players are adults who may have experienced the event for the first time as children and sheep and goats that are possibly also second-generation re-enactors, as well as other volunteers, young and old: angels, Magi, innkeepers, kings, tax-collectors and shepherds.
And the young child and the willing mother at the center of the adventure, who always seem to make it through with miraculous composure. Last week was no exception, as baby and mother welcomed pilgrim after pilgrim into their midst with hymns and thanksgiving. The eight-month-old was keen throughout, watching intently from his mother’s arms as each person passed by – sometimes from over her shoulder, sometimes while snacking from a bottle, sometimes with his head lolling over her elbow in a way to regard everyone upside down. Would the encounter with the mother and child have seemed any different 2,000 years ago?
For cold and weary pilgrims, salvation followed on this day in the form of cookies, zillions of them, prepared by church members and friends. There were so many cookies that even Roman guards were invited to sit at the table, portending good things in the world. There was also hot chocolate, cider, tea and coffee. It was hospitality to the standards of the ancient world when more bandits than inns appeared on the road between villages, and any house could be a haven.
All was well when the day ended. Sheep and goats were led home, bells jingling, as were the young pilgrims, their minds more fixed on a particular star overhead and each perhaps thinking, “God bless us, everyone, and to all, a good night.”
Jarvis Coffin and his wife Marcia owned New Hampshire’s oldest inn, The Hancock Inn, during which time he wrote a popular newsletter for the inn’s mailing list. Retired from innkeeping, he now writes full-time, mostly essays on rural life and fiction. You can reach him at huntspond@icloud.com, and keep up with his other musings on the Monadnock Region at postcard-from-monadnock.ghost.io.