Nativity

I decided this year to be quite bah-humbuggy about Christmas decorations. Right after Thanksgiving, I didn't have the energy, or the desire to get out Christmas Decorations. When I did eventually have time, it seemed too late to even bother. Why get them out when I would just have to put them away in a week? I know, bah- humbug. I figured I would only get out the necessities... the nativity scene and the stockings (gotta have Santa fill those up!) but I realized... I didn't have a nativity scene.

When I was young, we had the coolest nativity scene. Made totally out of cardboard...or cardstock or something like that. It was like paper dolls. They would store flat, and you would have to bend paper and fit tabs into things to make the shepherds stand up. I think the manger was even three-dimensional when put all together. No clue where my mom got it. Maybe from a paper doll kind of book? Who knows. For something so simple, the pictures were so intricate and beautiful.
This thing got so worn out from years of us putting it together, that my mom had to laminate it to get it sturdier. As far as I know, she still puts it together every year.

A few years ago, when I was really crafty into clay, I fashioned my mom a nativity scene made entirely out of polymer clay. Even though I am not artistic, and it looks like something a fifth grader could have done, I am proud of it. It is me.

My friend Ging was sort of complaining a month ago, in a mom sort of way, about her nativity scene. It seems the little boy genius had been playing with the porcelain baby Jesus and had lost him. hmmm. Quite the predicament. So we were thrilled to see in the store, a little kid plastic play set of the nativity.
I will admit that at first I had issues with this plastic play set. I had problems with, for some reason, little kids making up their own version of the story... (this coming from the girl who proudly owns an action figure Jesus?)

But then, isn't that what has happened for ages now? We all have made up our own story of the birth of Jesus? Sorry folks, it never talks about Mary riding a donkey. Sorry people, It never says how many wise men were there. Could have been 3, could have been 20. Who knows.
It was strange to me, reading the Gospels to figure out just how much of OUR story of the birth of our savior was missing from the actual text.
Why? Why had we, for many many years, added details to the story? To make it nicer, more festive?

The little boy genius, I hear, makes the shepherd wear the king’s clothes. The angel likes to be snuck in with him on shopping trips, and I am sure baby Jesus is lost on a regular basis. And that is ok. Kid, you make up your own story of the birth of Baby Jesus. Everyone else has.
And does it matter? I guess not. What matters is we worship Him and we know that with his birth, comes miracles, love, grace, patience, and forgiveness. That is the True Story of Christmas my friends, forever and always.
Merry Christmas!