Nick Dauer, right, technical director of the Springfield Nativity Pageant, points out set and scene locations to WCCO’s Joe Berglove, who visited Springfield and filmed the presentation Friday evening.  Grady Meendering is at the left.

Springfield Nativity Pageant ~ Best of Minnesota

WCCO viewers’ choice of Springfield for the Best of Minnesota’s Live Nativity is a huge tribute to the Springfield Area Nativity Theatre Association and the community of Springfield that presented the pageant for the thirty-second season over the weekend. 

WCCO photojournalist Joe Berglove visited Springfield the afternoon and evening of Friday, Dec. 8, to collect information and photograph the Friday evening performance from which he will edit and present for broadcast during the 10 p.m. news Thursday, Dec. 14.  From atop bleachers by the pressbox in the football field in Riverside Park, Berglove included a group shot of the cast after the final amen was sung

For 32 years, the community of Springfield has produced a pageant of Christmas with the profound desire that all who share in it will experience hope, faith, love and everlasting joy — the true meaning of Christmas.

In the spirit of the season, back in 1985 volunteers began visioning and planning for a special event for Springfield.  This event turned out to be a pageant that brought the story of The First Christmas to life. Volunteers wrote the script, selected music, sewed costumes, constructed buildings, and conducted fundraising, too, in order to financially support the pageant that is presented free of charge — a gift from the community of Springfield. 

During the past 32 years, the Springfield Area Nativity Theatre Association (SANTA) has presented 130 performances.  A number of SANTA’s workers have been involved in all 130 performances as cast, choir or crew. While these people have given hundreds of hours of time and efforts during the past 32 years, most of them have never been in the spotlight, but it is because of their commitment and work that Springfield has earned Best of Minnesota accolades.

The Springfield Nativity Pageant is one of Minnesota’s few outdoor, live productions.  A production staged under the stars during a Minnesota winter, a community chorus, live animals — including camels — an all-local volunteer cast of biblical characters, and the fact that it is presented free of charge — makes the pageant unique.  

The framework for the Springfield Nativity Pageant formed with solid support from all six Springfield churches makes it special!

Several fundraisers — a summer burger feed and a holiday cookie sale and soup and sandwich lunch — and a few generous donations from local churches, area businesses, and individuals provide financial support for the pageant. 

Pageant organizers thought it was necessary to produce something outstanding or dramatic to set aside the Springfield pageant from other pageants.  The choice of live camels provided that feature. JoDon Farms of Franksville, Wisconsin, was contracted and provided camels, a donkey, sheep and goats from 1986 through 2004.  Since then, the local Vogel Exotic Animals has provided the camels and donkey. Local farmers provide sheep, calves and doves for the manger scene, and geese and ducks for the marketplace. 

When the pageant was unveiled 32 years ago — a production staged in the outdoors of a Minnesota winter — most people never imagined how heartwarming and popular it would become. Over the past 32 years, thousands of people have flocked to the “Little Town of Bethlehem” in Springfield for the performances — some returning year after year because the pageant has become a Christmas tradition.

The Christmas Pageant knits the family of Springfield together in different ways.  Beyond the commercial clamor, a quieter Springfield expresses its seasonal sentiments and the soul of Christmas continues to shine brightly.

And with memories like those, the Springfield Nativity Theatre Association plans to keep giving their gift of the Springfield Nativity Pageant for years to come.

Springfield Advance-Press

13 S. Marshall Avenue PO Box 78 Springfield, MN 56087

507-723-4225