- Feb 5, 2002
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Why a Beloved Community Tradition Is Still Going Strong Decades Later
SHERBORN, Mass. — More than 40 years ago, Richard and Joan Downing had an adolescent foster child who had heard of Christmas but didn’t understand it.
Wanda couldn’t hear and had mental health problems. Joan struggled to describe it to her.
Then Joan hit upon an idea: Why not act it out?
She organized the children in her household (more on that later) and reached out to neighbors and friends, including her kids’ CCD classmates at nearby St. Theresa of Lisieux parish.
The Downings lived on a small farm in Sherborn, Massachusetts, a semi-rural town of about 4,400 about 18 miles southwest of Boston, on which they kept cows, ducks, chickens and pigs. So they could pull off a stable scene.
Ronnie Downing, an adoptee, played Joseph, with wig hair glued to his face. Andrea Dupras, a foster child, played Mary, wearing a white cassock and a long piece of shimmery blue fabric as a mantle.
Girls wore summer bedspreads with fringe and little yellow pom-poms as angel costumes. Boys played shepherds. For music, they used a record player and put speakers on the window sills of the house, while they acted out the story in a field next door that their neighbors lent for the occasion.
Wanda seemed to like it. She had a big smile on her face.
The next year, the Downings decided to do it bigger. And it grew. The sets grew. The casts grew. The audiences grew.
Four decades later, the Live Nativity in Sherborn is still going strong.
If it’s 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 22 or Dec. 23, it’s show time.
Continued below.
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SHERBORN, Mass. — More than 40 years ago, Richard and Joan Downing had an adolescent foster child who had heard of Christmas but didn’t understand it.
Wanda couldn’t hear and had mental health problems. Joan struggled to describe it to her.
Then Joan hit upon an idea: Why not act it out?
She organized the children in her household (more on that later) and reached out to neighbors and friends, including her kids’ CCD classmates at nearby St. Theresa of Lisieux parish.
The Downings lived on a small farm in Sherborn, Massachusetts, a semi-rural town of about 4,400 about 18 miles southwest of Boston, on which they kept cows, ducks, chickens and pigs. So they could pull off a stable scene.
Ronnie Downing, an adoptee, played Joseph, with wig hair glued to his face. Andrea Dupras, a foster child, played Mary, wearing a white cassock and a long piece of shimmery blue fabric as a mantle.
Girls wore summer bedspreads with fringe and little yellow pom-poms as angel costumes. Boys played shepherds. For music, they used a record player and put speakers on the window sills of the house, while they acted out the story in a field next door that their neighbors lent for the occasion.
Wanda seemed to like it. She had a big smile on her face.
The next year, the Downings decided to do it bigger. And it grew. The sets grew. The casts grew. The audiences grew.
Four decades later, the Live Nativity in Sherborn is still going strong.
If it’s 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 22 or Dec. 23, it’s show time.
In the Beginning
Continued below.
Christmas in the Field: How One Family Created a Live Nativity
Why a Beloved Community Tradition Is Still Going Strong Decades Later
