8 minute read
A manger seen
Families flock to farm for seasonal story
Every year, Pennywell Farm recreates the Nativity and invites the visiting families to take part in the experience
Feature by Claire Brine
THEY say never work with children
or animals – but Chris Murray and his team at Pennywell Farm in south Devon are doing both, as they put on their annual Nativity play in the run-up to Christmas.
‘Every year, we take our guests on a walking Nativity journey, telling them the Christmas story,’ says Chris, who opened Pennywell in 1989, along with his wife, Nicky. ‘It’s such a joyous occasion. The main barn becomes a stable where we celebrate Jesus’ birth, and the rest of the farm is totally transformed, decorated with hundreds of twinkling lights and Christmas trees.’
Excited at the thought of entering a manger scene with a real little donkey, my family and I decide to wrap up warm, pull on our wellies and head to Pennywell to see the Nativity for ourselves. On our arrival, we are handed Christmas passports, which will be stamped at various points on our journey.
Then we make our way to the North Pole, which is our first stop before Bethlehem. It’s a place where families can climb into Santa’s sleigh and pose for photographs, while Pennywell staff are on hand to supply costumes to anyone wanting to take part in the Nativity. Reaching out
for a halo made from tinsel, my little girl decides that she’d like to be an angel. Around us, I can spot Joseph and a wise man also getting dressed up. ‘We do the Nativity journey in groups of about 30 people, so we have costumes for all the children if they want to get involved,’ Chris tells me when we chat over the phone in the weeks leading up to my visit. ‘They may want to dress up as a shepherd, a wise man or an innkeeper. But, of course, there can only be one Mary. Once everyone The main barn is ready, our narrator takes the guests on a becomes a journey to the town of Nazareth, where stable for Jesus the first part of the Christmas story is recited.’ Sitting on bales of hay, the audience watch as a child angel Gabriel appears to Mary, telling her that she has been chosen by God to have his Son, called Jesus. There’s a bright light all around. The action moves into Joseph’s carpentry workshop, where Gabriel informs Joseph that Mary is pregnant by God’s Holy
Spirit. The narrator then explains that the couple need to travel to the town of Bethlehem for a census – and the journey is going to be long and difficult. Thankfully, in the corner of Joseph’s workshop, there is a real-life donkey, all ready to show us the way. Off we trot, with a clip and a clop. I love it.
When the audience arrive at Bethlehem, we experience sound effects evoking a bustling town. Once we enter the main farmyard, the narrator points out that we need to find accommodation, because Mary is about to have her baby. So the children are invited to walk round various animal pens, which are the inns, and knock on the doors to ask if there is any room. As goats bleat from behind the fences of various inns, children knock.
R I C H A R D A U S T I N
Children dress up to re-enact the Nativity in the barn
But there are no vacancies. When all hope seems lost, Mary and Joseph finally encounter an innkeeper who offers them a stable. So we set off in the direction of Pennywell’s main barn, where – among donkeys, horses, alpacas and pigs – the rest of the Christmas story unfolds. Jesus is born. It’s noisy, cold, a little bit smelly – and somehow beautiful.
As children dressed as shepherds approach the baby and present him with cuddly toy lambs, we are invited to sing the carol ‘While Shepherds Watched’, which happens to be accompanied by the occasional oinking of a pig. Then, when a group of wise men bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, we chime in with ‘We Three Kings’.
My little girl, proud to be in her angel costume, sits with other children in the manger scene and enjoys belting out ‘Away in a Manger’, which is our final carol. Every parent, it seems, is taking photos – and I’m one of them.
‘That final scene in the manger always brings a feeling of calm – especially if we have a real baby playing Jesus,’ says Chris. ‘The narrator explains that God sent Jesus, his Son, into the world to be our saviour, and nearly every time the audience hear that part of the story, there’s a pause, a silence. We are
Turn to page 10 f
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celebrating the light coming into the world.’
It’s a story Chris feels compelled to tell, year after year.
‘Every Christmas, Nicky and I stage the Nativity at Pennywell because of our Christian faith. Sharing the good news is what Jesus tells his followers to do. When you become a Christian, God’s Holy Spirit comes into your life and it makes you want to share that good news with others. The last thing Jesus said to his disciples was that his message was for everyone.
‘This year, when the world looks so hopeless, the Nativity play is a gentle way of reminding people that there is so much hope to be had. The world may be full of condemnation, but Jesus comes with a different message. He transformed people. He is our source of hope and joy, if we go to him.’
Sharing the Christmas story at Pennywell has been important to Chris since the farm’s beginning. He remembers staging the first Nativity in 1990, after a couple of members of staff approached him with the idea.
‘They told me that they wanted to raise some money for their church and suggested putting on a Nativity play at the farm, because not every school appeared to be doing them any more. I knew that I wanted to raise money for the Christian charity, Tearfund, so I agreed. ‘We also wanted to do the Nativity because we felt that the real meaning of Christmas was getting lost a bit. It’s about Christ – and not the “mass” of eating and drinking. Christmas had become so materialistic, and yet there’s no need for it to be like that.’
Though the celebration of Jesus’ birth is at the heart of a Pennywell Christmas, there are plenty of other festive treats for the audience to enjoy once the Nativity play has finished. After leaving Bethlehem, my family and I head to another part of the farm, where we take a ride on a tractor and spot gingerbread men along the trail. In Noah’s Barn, my daughter visits the elves’ sweet shop to pick up her free bag of goodies, then happily sits down with a ChristmasThe Nativity tree cookie to write her letter play brings to Santa. After a quick bounce hope on the bouncy castle, we head off to meet some of the other animals on the farm, enjoying cuddles with miniature pigs and mice.
Our final stop before heading home is Santa’s grotto, where the man in red chats with my little girl, poses for a photo, gives her a high five and hands her an early Christmas present. He has made her day – and when I see the smile on her face, my day feels pretty special too.
‘Every year we are looking for ways to make Christmas at Pennywell even better,’ says Chris. ‘So, although the Nativity story always remains the same, we invest a lot more money in the whole experience. This
An innkeeper turns away Mary and Joseph
year we’ve got more lights for Bethlehem and new sound effects. We’ve bought 200 bales of fresh straw, so that the barn is comfortable for the performances, plus we’ve got hundreds of Christmas trees. The idea is to make the farm appealing to everyone, and it really does look spectacular with twinkling lights all over the place.’
While Pennywell attracts many new visitors during the Christmas season, some families return year after year, explaining to Chris that the Nativity (and all the farm’s festive trimmings) have become part of their annual traditions.
‘We get a lot of generational visits – grandparents, parents and young children,’ says Chris. ‘But we also get a lot of parents with their older children who are university students. Ever since Covid, families have been looking for ways to get together and find activities to get them in the Christmas spirit. Knowing that families are relying on us in this way drives us on to make the Nativity even better and more relevant.’
Chris hopes that when it’s time for guests to go home, the message of the Christmas story will remain in their hearts. In his experience, it’s a message of peace, joy and hope.
‘Christmas is about God coming to Earth in human form, so that no matter what we have done wrong in our life, we can be saved,’ he says. ‘Every morning, Nicky and I pray for everyone coming into the farm, that they will hear the Christmas message and discover it is real. My hope is that when families visit us, they have more than just a lovely experience. I want them to go home saying: “There was something different going on at that farm. What is it?”’
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