Add a Bethlehem dinner (Shepherd’s Christmas Dinner) to your Christmas activities with family, Christmas meal idea, or if you’re looking to add kid friendly Christmas activities to celebrate the reason for the season! If you’re looking to include the Bible Christmas story into your holiday celebrations or Christmas traditions (especially for holiday kids activities or youth group ideas), this special holiday food celebration is a unique way to do it. It’s one of our favorite Christmas Eve traditions each holiday season!
What Is A Bethlehem Dinner?
A night in Bethlehem supper is great for kids’ Christmas activities and good way to honor the birth of the Savior during the Christmas season.
Also called a Shepherd’s Dinner, it’s a fun Christmas party ideas to recreate the journey to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, by serving traditional foods during the time.
Some families even dress up and recreate sights, smells, and sounds of the time!
What do people in Bethlehem eat on Christmas?
Bethlehem Dinner Ideas:
- Fish
- Dates
- Honey
- Grape Juice
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Figs / Dates
- Olives
- Olive Oil
- Unleavened bread / wheat or barley bread
See our full Bethlehem menu ideas and how to have a Bethlehem dinner at home ideas below! KEEP SCROLLING for the night in Bethlehem ideas!
What did Mary and Joseph eat on the way to Bethlehem?
Mary and Joseph probably kept food very basic on their journey to Bethlehem as they had to bring their own provisions and did not have much room to bring a great deal of food.
On the Mary and Joseph trip to Bethlehem they probably had water to drink and ate bread with herbs and oil.
It wasn’t an extravagant dinner Bethlehem menu!
TIP: Keep reading for back to Bethlehem dinner foods.
Here’s what we did for our Journey To Bethlehem Dinner…
HOW TO HAVE A BETHLEHEM DINNER
A Bethlehem supper is really quite easy.
You want to include traditional foods of Bethlehem for the time, served in simple (communal) serving bowls and platters that are shared by everyone.
This is now a favorite family activity for Christmas that we’ve added as a Christmas tradition now.
It would be great to add to a Sunday school lesson for preschool Christmas ideas on Christmas, kids Christmas party for church, youth group Christmas ideas, or even an Advent activity, too!
You can add this to your Christian Christmas Eve ideas, but we did ours a couple of weeks before Christmas so we didn’t feel so rushed enjoying and eating the dinner.
It’s a fun activity with families, journey to Bethlehem Sunday school lesson ideas, kids activity ideas for the holidays, or even Bible themed snacks.
You can even make a Bethlehem community dinner with your church.
Definitely add this to your Christmas Eve dinner traditions or holiday events!
FUN CRAFT TO GO WITH THIS CHRISTMAS THEME: Try making a DIY star of Bethlehem craft like this as part of your kids activities!
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #1: Serve only foods that were commonly eaten during Biblical times.
Make a Bethlehem dinner menu made up of any of the foods from that time.
Don’t be afraid to try new things (like figs and honey) for your journey to Bethlehem dinner night.
You can include anything you want in your Bethlehem diner menu, but it’s fun to try to stay true to the time period as much as you can for your holy supper Christmas eve event.
Traditional foods of this time included:
- Unleavened bread/wheat
- Herbs
- Goat cheese / feta
- Goat’s milk
- Fish
- Eggs
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Figs
- Dates
- Olives
- Olive Oil
- Pomegranates (learn how to cut and eat pomegranates)
- Grapes
- Honey
- Lentils
- Wine
Unleavened bread is a flat bread without an agent to make it rise (like yeast).
You can use pita bread or naan as your unleavened bread, or even make your own Bethlehem bread recipe!
GRAB COOKING THROUGH CHRISTMAS FOR CHRISTIAN KIDS – BIBLE FOODS AND ACTIVITIES FOR CHRISTMAS
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS PRINTABLE
What Do You Include In Your Bethlehem Meal?
What do you serve at a Bethlehem dinner?
For our Bethlehem dinner, we included:
- Grapes
- Pomegranate seeds
- Cucumbers
- Nuts
- Feta cheese
- Olive oil with fresh rosemary
- Roasted figs with honey
- Pickled onions
- Olives (black and green)
- Halva butter
- Flat bread (we used Naan)
- Honey
- Herbs and spices
LEARN HOW TO ROAST DRIED FIGS LIKE IN THE PICTURE!
You can also include grape juice, hummus, plain chickpeas, stuffed grape leaves, pearsm and other Bethlehem foods for your celebration.
Although these weren’t available during Biblical times and definitely aren’t Christmas eve traditional food, we included toffee and chocolate from Israel that we received in a Bethlehem box.
That cute Bethlehem plate and the Halva butter came in there too, which ended up being perfect for a night in Bethlehem ideas.
Consider ditching the Christmas eve traditional meal and trying this, especially if you’re looking for light Christmas eve dinner ideas with kids.
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #2: Make a communal food spread.
For your journey to Bethlehem meal, place food on simple, communal platters and bowls that everyone shares (like these wooden serving plates).
Food during that time was eaten with hands instead of utensils, so have fun with it! We added finger bowls with water so people could regularly rinse their fingers (and this was a really good addition!).
You can serve water or grape juice with your Christmas eve food from Bethlehem.
We actually served ours on wood cheese boards that we had and they worked perfectly!
You don’t have to stress too much about what you put the food on. Just present it in a family-style food sharing way.
You can also spread food platters on a tablecloth on the floor or on a low table and have everyone sit on pillows around the spread.
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #3: Dress up in clothing appropriate for the time period.
If you really want to get into your Bethlehem journey or shepherds dinner, have everyone dress up in period clothing for the time!
Men and women both wore tunics and sandals.
Women’s tunics were long enough to cover their feet.
Women may have also worn head coverings (like scarves) over long hair that was braided.
Women also wore jewelry, especially bracelets.
We didn’t dress up for our Shepherd’s Dinner yet, but it’s on our TO DO Christmas list one year. We all thought it sounded fun.
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #4: Decorate with oil lamps or candles.
Remember, in Bethlehem in Jesus time there was no electricity.
Recreate the atmosphere by turning off the lights and instead using candles or oil lamps on your table and around the room.
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #5: Create smells from the time.
The open outdoor markets during the time Jesus Christ was born was filled with smells — spices, animals, food, and more and really takes you through the journey of Christmas.
You can recreate the smells by burning frankincense and myrrh candles (or other spice candles), incense, wax melts, or using essential oils for Bethlehem during Christmas.
(We used Frankincense & Myrrh sticks like this and it worked really well to recreate the Bethlehem atmosphere!)
We found that this, the candles, and the music really added to our a night in Bethlehem dinner!
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #6: Play ancient music of the Middle East.
Music was also a big part of this time (just like any other time).
Play ancient music of the Middle East (like this from the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble or from here).
It really helped recreate Bethlehem in Bible times for our party!
- OUR PARTY TIP EXPERIENCE: We all agreed that the incense and the music (in a candlelit room) were really what pushed this from being a really good party to a really great party that gave us sights, sounds, and tastes of the time. DO NOT skip the incense and music part!
Bethlehem Dinner Tip #7: Read Christmas Bible verses.
You can also go even further and take turns reading the Biblical account of Christ’s birth and the Jesus was born in Bethlehem Bible verse.
For your read aloud of the Biblical account of Christ’s birth, use these Bible verses:
- Matthew 1:18-23
- Matthew 2:1-12
- Luke 2:7
- Luke 2:21
- Luke 2:11-14
- Matthew 2:11-12
Don’t forget to say a Christmas eve dinner blessing or offer a Christmas dinner prayer for family before your Shepards dinner / Bethlehem supper!
ALSO CHECK OUT: Printable Christmas Story Bible Verses Advent Calendar (HAND DRAWN)
Bethlehem Diner Tip #8: Read children’s Christmas books.
To help kids better understand the journey of Bethlehem and why Bethlehem is important, add some kids books about Christ’s birth to your journey to Bethlehem meal.
You can also have discussions on why is Bethlehem important to Jesus and what did Jesus do in Bethlehem to go along with your Bethlehem Christmas dinner.
You can even make reading and a Bethlehem supper your new family Christmas Eve tradition!
Let us know if you create a Bethlehem journey dinner or Bible themed party for Christmas and how it goes! Tag us @LilCooksReading on Instagram so we can see your pics!
What are you doing for Christmas?
Hosting Bethlehem dinners are great ways to create Christ-centered Christmas traditions, especially if you find yourself asking what do you do Christmas eve or what do you eat on Christmas eve.
(This is definitely a new tradition Christmas eve dinner for us!)
You may even find that change your family traditional Christmas dinner or traditional Christmas eve meal to a Bethlehem journey Christmas dinner.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
HAVE FUN HOSTING A BETHLEHEM DINNER OR SHEPHERD’S DINNER FOR YOUR FAMILY CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES!
LOOKING FOR FUN COOKING PRINTABLES FOR KIDS?
These are absolutely incredible, how have I never seen anything like this and why on earth did I not think to do it myself!! Kicking myself right now.
Thank you for the link to the music. Last year I was looking everywhere for good music for our Bethlehem dinner. This is perfect! Thank you!
I’m so glad! We looked everywhere for great music, too! HAVE FUN!