Write Team: More to the Nativity than meets the eye

Like many of you, we have some traditional holiday decorations that must be brought out every year, and I look forward to unpacking it all. The Nativity Set is one of the first things I put out.

My Aunt Kathy painted the figures and stable of our set as a wedding present more than 47 years ago. I carefully unwrap the pieces and arrange them in a pleasing order. Each king is next to his color-coordinated camel. The two shepherds sit among their sheep. The ox and donkey are lying nearby while the angel is front and center. Mary and Joseph wait inside the stable. I never put Baby Jesus out until Christmas Day.

The display looked pretty much the same every year, set up on a small table in the entryway.

Until the year my oldest granddaughter took a liking to them.

She was 5 or 6 years old and fascinated with it. She would sit in front of the table, picking up the figures and moving them around. She was careful after I cautioned her the pieces were fragile. I had a hard time watching her rearrange my careful display, even adding Baby Jesus before Christmas.

“He hasn’t been born yet,” I’d say.

“Yes, he has,” she’d reply.

After she went home, I would remove Baby Jesus. And every time she came over, she’d put him back.

One year, I purchased another Nativity Set and some random angels at a yard sale, thinking if she had her own set, she would stop rearranging mine. Nope. She just combined them all. The display grew more crowded after she added Batman and Joker along with a few other action figures and some Little People.

Both Marys and Josephs shared the inside of the stable. None of the kings were with their respective camels, and one king faced backwards. An ox lay amidst the herd of sheep. Batman stood next to Little People. One shepherd was turned around, not looking toward the scene. I had dropped the original angel years ago and one wing snapped off. She stood near the donkey with broken ears. One Baby Jesus was squished in the stable and the other was next to Joker.

I looked at that jam-packed motley crew crammed onto the table. It sure didn’t look very holy.

Then I realized this is probably a more accurate depiction than my carefully staged arrangement. This group, mixed and mingled, is who we really are; different kinds of people coming together, waiting for the peace that is Christmas. Some are not paying attention, others are a little broken. Some wait patiently, and all of us are a bit messy and needy at times.

The arrangement made perfect sense.

Our older granddaughter is a teen now, and she is content to let me arrange the set. I put the figures out in a more traditional grouping. Then our 4-year-old granddaughter saw the display, and she began to move the figures around. I smiled.

“And a little child will lead them.”

Karen Roth is a semiretired librarian/educator living in Ottawa. She can be reached at dbarichello@shawmedia.com.