Burnet, Texas

We had a chance to visit a local Christmas tradition in the central Texas area.  It's called Main Street Bethlehem and it's located in Burnet, Texas.  Burnet is about a 60-minute drive from Austin.  It's a small town that is swamped for two weekends in December ; )  Main Street Bethlehem is presented by the First Baptist Church and is an attempt to recreate the look and feel of Bethlehem at the time of Christ's birth.

The size of this thing is impressive - it's about the size of an entire city block. Volunteers dress in period costumes, and roam through the "town".  This isn't a small undertaking by any means.  The popularity of this event is stunning - we missed it last year, because the line to get in was over 2 hours long.  This year, we went "early" and still had to wait over 45 mintes (felt like Disneyland):

I stole this from their website, to try and show how large it is - hard to see in the dark...

G-Man checks out geese, ducks and doves...

They actually built this entire structure...

They had lots of animals, to really make it authentic.  Donkeys, sheep...and they even had camels! Talk about commitment...

The most-important part of the entire thing was the manger.  Despite the crowds and chaos, this was a moment of deeply spiritual meaning for me...

I have to give the First Baptist Church of Burnet some credit.  This was obviously a labor of love.  Admission was free...donations were obviously accepted...but this isn't a small under-taking.  In my opinion, you wouldn't see something like this outside of Texas, or the South.  I sure appreciate how open people are about religion in this area.

To finish the evening off, we found another local icon - the Blue Bonnet Cafe.  This is located in Marble Falls, just a few minutes down the road from Burnet.  The cafe has been open since 1929, and has a wonderful local feel to it.  They're known for their pies:

Chocolate Meringue

As you wait in line to be seated, you get to stare at all of these pies.  I mean...who has a pie "happy hour"????  We're just glad they do.

However, the next time that we pass by Marble Falls, I'm going to have their chicken-fried steak.  I was drooling over this dish at the next table.  I don't even mind the drive... ; )