Hodgeville isn’t easy to reach without a four-wheel drive along the icy roads west of Gravelbourg, but the Nativity display in the Hodgeville Community Centre entertained visitors arriving in all sorts of vehicles from Regina to Swift Current to the village in the RM of Lawtonia.
“It’s always on the first weekend of December,” Anne Barkman, one of the display’s originators said. This year, the event ran from November 29-December 1 in the Hodgeville Community Centre from 10 a.m. until the evenings at different hours. Together, she and her friend Andrea Kerr had reshaped and enlarged the exhibit with free admission, which had been held in the village’s community centre for over nine years.
When a visitor walked through Hodgeville’s centre, the spectacle of more than 1200 Nativity scenes lit with Christmas lights was awe inspiring and tranquil. Colourful lights were spread and layered over the Nativity scenes recreated in wood, glass and other materials. The scenes originated from Kerr’s and Barkman’s collections and from several contributors.
Barkman described how the annual pre-Christmas event in Hodgeville had brought people from south west Saskatchewan together for this seasonal celebration. “Today, we’ve had two carloads from Regina. We’ve got a bunch coming from Coronach later.”
Barkman and Kerr had organized this event for 11 years. Originally, the two friends arranged a display of 150 scenes in the Kelstern Community Church northeast of Hodgeville, but they moved the nativity scenes into Hodgeville two years after when the Night Jesus was Born gained recognition. “This has just grown beyond belief,” Barkman remarked.
“The first year, it was just the two of us,” recalled Kerr.
The presentation in Hodgeville on a snowy November day was an art show unlike any other with wood carvings, stone sculptures, glass domes, figurines and mangers of various sizes. Barkman depicted some of the hard work gone into presenting this year’s display. “There’s 25 ladies and some guys helping and there’s lots of baking.” Both she and Kerr estimated there were about 15-20 donors to 2019’s Night Jesus was Born.
Kerr had always hoped the display she and Barkman prepared and organized over 11 years would remind people about the true meaning behind Christmas. “I always grew up with the birth of Jesus being the reason for Christmas,” she explained.
Viewers can still see Night Jesus was Born at the Hodgeville Community Centre on Sunday, December 1 from 10-6 p.m.
