On the 2nd
day of Christmas,
A Nativity Scene…
The first Christmas, after moving into Chuck’s house, I
started looking through his meager Christmas Decorations, and I do mean
meager. It is important to note here
that he does not share my love of all things Christmas. He humors me, but throws in a “bah humbug”
once in a while just to remind me. He says my version of Christmas is a
“marathon”. I’m sure he exaggerates.J
However, my quest was not in vain as I did discover an
awesome treasure in his attic. It was a
nativity set. He said it belonged to his
mother and that year, it was one of the first decorations I put up. He kindly said, “you don’t have to put it up
just because it was my mom’s”. However,
for me it was the epitome of what Christmas is all about plus the fact that it
belonged to his mother. It gave me a
chance to honor his mother, and bring a little of his family into the mix as I
tried to find ways to marry our families and the traditions that were important
to me together.
It is hard for me to fathom giving birth in a barn in the hay with animals all around; and what humble surroundings that was for Jesus to be born in. Yet I can't help but think what a lesson that is to us. It is when we are humbled that we are often most effective in our life.
When my son was small, it was so important for me to have a
nativity set at the base of our Christmas tree.
I wanted it to be the focus
under the tree not the presents. People
who came to my house were surprised that I would place a nativity set at the
base of my tree with a small child in the house. Even though he was “all boy”, he was so
gentle with the nativity set. He and I
would sit on the floor in front of the tree and pick up each piece and talk
about the role each of them played in the birth of Christ – yes even the
animals. These are things that never
leave us as they stay in our hearts forever.
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