‘Maybe Christmas Will Stop the War’: A Child’s Hope in Bethlehem

You could be forgiven for thinking that it is always Advent in Bethlehem. Everything in the town seems to lean toward the manger, toward Christmas. I live with my family on Manger Street, the long main road that leads up the hill to the Basilica of the Nativity in the town square, climbing steadily until it reaches the church that was first built in the 4th century and still stands today on the place where Jesus was born. The bakery beneath my home, where my neighbors place out warm loaves of bread in the early morning, is called the Manger Bakery. There is even a flower shop across the street called December, as though our town is held in a state of perpetual Christmas. In many ways it is, as pilgrims journey here all year round to read the same story in every language of the day on which Christ was born in Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.