By Jay Sorgi • Posted December 18, 2024

Drive-thru fast food restaurants have been part of our lives since just after World War II. You find drive-thru groceries in some neighborhoods, while the COVID-19 pandemic lent itself to everything from drive-thru art galleries to zoos. We’ve become used to drive-thru Christmas light displays over the years too.

A Catholic parish in Warminster is making their drive-thru nativity scene a family-centered Christmas tradition, one that brings much more reflection, meaning and emotion than one’s typical experience in a car.

“Sometimes we’ve had cars with adults with tears in their eyes as they’re leaving,” said Ann Marie Gervino, the director of parish ministries at Nativity of Our Lord Parish in Warminster. “It’s just a moving scene to encounter a living nativity.”

And everyone can visit the scene as the parish at 605 West Street Road in Warminster will host the drive-thru nativity on Saturday, Dec. 21 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Gervino said she and Father Joseph Watson, the pastor, had discerned the idea of a drive-thru nativity on the parish property near Archbishop Wood High School, something his previous parish had hosted.

“I live in Northeast Philadelphia, and a number of years ago, one of the Protestant churches in our neighborhood did a very simple drive-thru,” Gervino added. “I just remember being moved by the simplicity and beauty of it. After we went through it, everybody was given a bag of freshly made Christmas cookies. We just decided to pull the trigger.”

Their first drive-thru nativity – one appropriate for a parish called Nativity of Our Lord – happened in 2021, but Gervino said it has become a parish tradition because of the powerful volunteer effort to make it a reality.

“We had a very talented man who was able to construct the structures that we used for the drive-thru, and a very talented woman who was helping with the costumes, and then just a whole army of volunteers who came forward to help with so many different things,” said Gervino.

She said that in past years, attendees would experience four scenes: the Annunciation, the Visitation, St. Joseph’s dream, and the main nativity scene, but they are making changes for the 2024 edition.

“We’re going to have some store shops and shopkeepers and townspeople and shepherds, some of whom will be looking for the newborn King. We’ve tried to make the main scene a little more magnificent,” Gervino added.

“Every year we’ve included live animals – camels, donkeys, sheep – and of course, a real baby Jesus. No dolls used. So we always get (a) mother and baby to volunteer, which is awesome to have.”

Perhaps drivers ought to bring tissues when they reach that scene, because this visual depiction of Christ’s birth may leave them deeply, emotionally struck.

“All its glory with Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus and the angels and the animals and the three kings,” Gervino said. “There’s a simplicity to it, and I think a beauty to it.”

She said that the parish’s music ministry has joined in to add music to the final scene, but the ultimate piece involves an idea borrowed from that church Gervino first visited for a drive-thru nativity: Christmas cookies.

“We have an army of cookie bakers baking cookies for us. Now they’re among the many volunteers who are helping with this,” said Gervino.

As for the logistics of the evening, people will need to arrive early and enter from Street Road, and only make right-hand turns entering the property.

Also, Gervino advised, “people have to be patient because if they come in the first hour, there’s a big, long line that goes down Street Road.”

She is grateful that the parish can organize and staff the event so well that it can expand its footprint and offer a more elaborate presentation of the Nativity of Jesus.

“Even though it seems rather simple or straightforward when you experience it, there’s a lot of moving parts,” she said. “We were very lucky that we got the interest, and it’s been sustained over the last couple of years, so it’s kind of become an annual thing for us.”

There are very few events families can experience where they feel the power of Christ’s birth through what Gervino called “a multi-generational cast of characters,” all while attendees are drinking hot cocoa or coffee from the nearby Starbucks or Wawa stores.

“It’s a very family friendly event, because the kids can stay in the car. They can be in their PJs. It’s a relatively quick event. You’re on the property maybe 10 or 15 minutes by the time you drive through everything,” she said.

“Our goal is to help folks be put in the right frame of mind about what Christmas is, and what the focus of it should be.”