The smell of Grandma’s freshly baked cookies fills the air and mingles with the laughter of children, the embrace of adults and the jingle of bells. The calendar might say 2018, but the first weekend of December in Burlington looks, feels and smells like the 1800s.
Village shops are lit with the warm glow of lanterns and decked in handmade wreaths and pictures from yesteryear. A woman strolls through the sawdust-strewn walkway, sporting a bonnet and carrying a basket on her arm. A gentleman tips his hat in passing and heads toward a horse-drawn carriage.
A herd of cherry-cheeked children spills out of a doorway. Their breath makes little clouds in the cold air, their fingers curled around long pretzels they dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. The traces of icing from Grandma’s cookies are still at the corners of their lips as they crunch their new treats and then head toward the schoolhouse. There, they dip quills in ink and sign their names to letters spreading the tidings of Christmas cheer.
The herd splits. One half gallops toward another village shop, where they will dip candles into warmed wax. The other half lopes toward the Woodworks, where a pile of shavings collects under a handcrafted, foot-operated spring pole lathe. A white-bearded man guides a child’s hand as together they grip a chisel, touch it to the spinning wood, and coax a spindle into existence.
From a distance, parents look on, nod their heads in approval, and plan the next stop at the General Store, where they will wrap their hands around cups of steaming hot chocolate.
This is an Old Kentucky Christmas, OKC for short. It is the gift of a four-day celebration in a replica of a pioneer village that helps folks slow down and experience the simplicity of a holiday free from the commercialized fray.
The Village That Raised the Village
In 2011, former Senior Pastor Greg Marksberry met with his leadership team at the First Church of Christ to share his vision of a gift to the community—a throwback to Christmases past, where all people were welcome to experience a different period in American history. The gift was intended to be absolutely free to the public and absolutely free from the trappings of modern hustle and bustle.
“We’d been doing a candlelight service for decades as a gift from the staff to our church,” explains Brian Heckber, outreach pastor for First Church. “Eventually, we added hot chocolate and a petting zoo. Then we said, ‘Let’s do something bigger.’ ”
What started as an inward focus on the congregation turned into an outward focus on the community. The transition has paid off in terms of deepened relationships.
Brent Adams, an independent representative for various companies in his regular day job, serves as a volunteer on the Village Leadership Team and has seen a difference in his life and in his community as church members intentionally focus on others.
“So many people don’t know church anymore. The church is just a building, and we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ as we serve others,” Adams says. “When someone comes onto our village campus and they see the smiles of people who are warm and friendly and really taking care of knowing they are OK and sharing Christmas, that’s the start of a relationship.
“This is not ‘throw up a bouncy house.’ There is a lot of love and care put into this event, and we take great pride in being able to serve our community. It’s not commercialized. It’s not about us selling you something or preaching to you. This event is all about reaching our community. We are just trying to say there is love all around, and this is a part of our love to our community. That’s who we are. That’s who we are supposed to be.”
The growth and focus of the event mirrors the history of the church itself. Fourteen people gathered in a Florence firehouse basement in June 1964. They sat on folding metal chairs and carried a belief that people needed hope—hope in Jesus, hope through faith, and hope manifested by the love they lived. The budding congregation built its first worship center just three years later.
Now, First Church of Christ in Burlington is home to thousands of members and offers multiple services on multiple campuses. Outreach Magazine, an evangelical Christian publication, listed First Church as one of the top 100 fastest growing churches in America in 2017.
Yet, for First Church members, the OKC event held every December is about more than increasing numbers. According to Heckber, Adams and others, First Church is simply continuing to fulfill one of the great commandments of Jesus: love one another. It’s just doing it pioneer style.
A People Prepared
One Saturday in early October, part of the village team assembled on the Camp Ernst Road campus. They dug and poured foundation footers for each village shop and began assembling floors, walls and roofs
“We have it down to a science,” Adams says of the event preparations now. “We have baggies labeled with all the bolts. We have all the panels labeled, so we aren’t guessing where everything goes. We have learned over the years.”
In a period of about six hours, the village is raised and ready for a team of decorators to come and make the bones of the shops festive and welcoming.
Over the next several weeks, volunteers fill a variety of roles. Alissa Lancaster, a member of First Church since 2014, serves as the OKC ministry leader. It is her job to make sure the event runs smoothly. She coordinates 400-600 volunteers to fill 1,400 different roles in and around campus during the four-day event.
“It does take a village to raise a village,” Lancaster says. “This is not only an opportunity to get to know our community; it’s also an opportunity to get to know our church family better. OKC gives the entire church body a chance to work side by side, doing life together.”
With the cooperative effort, OKC demonstrates a glimpse of pioneer life while also helping families create new Christmas traditions and memories.
“For so many families, this is what they do at Christmas. I know one woman who says it is the only time she can get everyone together for a family picture,” Lancaster says.
When Christmas Comes Alive
OKC begins on Thursday, Dec. 6, and runs through Sunday evening, Dec. 9. To make the event community-inclusive, OKC opens during the day on Friday for local elementary school children.
Heckber typically plans his Friday for a 7:30 a.m. start. He turns on all the lights, stokes the fires, and begins to melt the wax for the Wicks and Wax shop. Around 9 a.m., the first school buses arrive with their loads of children. The field trip coordinator takes over at this point, separating and shepherding groups to different places in the village.
By 2 p.m., the buses have retrieved their tired charges to take them back to their respective schools. Heckber and the crew have about a two-hour break; then they begin the process all over again for the evening crowds.
On Saturday, organizers reserve the morning hours from 9 a.m. to noon for a less-crowded campus to facilitate families with special-needs children.
“We are just trying to create a better experience for people. The more crowd that is here, the less ideal it is for special-needs families,” Heckber explains. “We have enough room that people can spread out.”
There also is enough room to facilitate space for Boone County Schools to present its Christmas programs on campus. Lancaster keeps track of which schools perform when and maintains an updated list for the community on the website at anoldkentuckychristmas.com under the Concerts tab. The arrangement is a festive win-win.
“Before, [the schools] were spending days and days setting it up, and the students could only invite two people to the concert,” Heckber says. “Now they can invite whomever they want.”
For the past several years, about 1,000 school children, including homeschooling groups, have experienced the OKC on Fridays. The entire weekend, though, will see upwards of 4,000-6,000 guests. Two years ago, when the temperatures reached an unseasonable 72 degrees the first weekend of December, 12,000 people came through, some in flip-flops.
Last year, with much colder temperatures, the evening was graced with snowfall, a perfect backdrop for OKC’s newest addition, Paul the Polar Bear.
“I had wanted for years to have a children’s book published about the event so that teachers could read it to the kids before they came to Old Kentucky Christmas,” Heckber says.
His wish came true with a story authored by Pat Lucas and illustrated by Joe Ruiz. The premise of the book, An Old Kentucky Christmas: Paul the Polar Bear, is that Paul is in charge of OKC, but a pesky squirrel tries to thwart his plans at every turn.
“Inside our building, we have Paul the Polar Bear telling the story, and then outside in each of the village shops, we have hidden a squirrel,” Heckber says.
There is more hidden in each of the shops than just the image of a squirrel.
The Things They Carry
One of Gary Webster’s favorite Christmas memories is the year he received a pegboard, complete with a hammer and little pegs he could make into a design.
“That kind of fit into my ambition, what was to come,” he says.
Webster grew up in Owenton on a farm with his siblings, parents and grandparents. He remembers using scrap pieces of his father’s lumber and a few spare nails to experiment with woodworking. He graduated from Owen County High School in 1968, worked for about a year in Cincinnati, then joined the Army. As the Vietnam War came to a close, Webster left military service and returned to work in Cincinnati at the Coca-Cola plant, a job he would continue until his 2016 retirement.
In between Army life and retirement, he learned dimensional woodworking, using a table saw and making shelves and “lots of clocks.” About 15 years ago, Webster attended a woodturning demonstration that sparked a new passion.
“I take a perfectly round tree, turn it into a square, and then make it round again,” Webster says and then chuckles.
In 2010, Webster made a foot-powered pole lathe. When Heckber asked Webster if he would be interested in running the lathe in the OKC village Woodworks shop, Webster knew what his answer would be.
“I work with complete strangers in extreme conditions,” he says of his volunteer time in the shop. “I do it because I can. I’ve been gifted, and I’ve been blessed. In return, I try to share these blessings any way I can. They see a part of history, and they see a group of people who are loving and willing to reach out to them. People who care about them.”
Mary Ann Judge, a fellow First Church member since 2000, also wants to bring love to people who come to OKC. She just prefers the behind-the-scenes kind of service.
“I’ve been doing cookies seriously for OKC for about three years,” she says.
She defines “seriously” as about 100 cookies. One hundred jumped to 500.
“Last year, Brian asked me for 5,000, and I said, ‘Sure,’ ” she says.
Judge bought extra pans and an extra rack for her oven. She goes through 30 pounds of sugar, two large cans of Crisco, lots of flour and extracts here and there. She uses a simple recipe for drop cookie that keeps well. The cookie has a bit of a lemon flavor and a perfect crisp. With a full-time job, Judge reserves her evenings about two weeks in advance of the event each year for baking.
“I can make maybe 180 in an hour, including baking time. I’ll bake them, and then a friend comes and counts them. We wrap them good and put them in a great plastic box tote with a tight lid,” she says.
For Judge, this type of service is fitting for the Christmas experiences she carries in her memories.
“I had a great aunt who baked a lot, and she would teach me things,” Judge recalls. “Before my kids grew up, I used to make about 20 to 25 different types of cookies, and I would give everybody a big plate of cookies for Christmas. I loved doing that.”
For all of the OKC volunteers, that’s what the weekend is about. As for the future, well, Lancaster has decided to trust God on that one.
“It’s going to go where God leads us to take it,” she says. “Our goal isn’t to be so big that we can’t connect. Our goal is to serve and to love and to show His love for others.”