I gaze at Mary and Joseph. It almost seems the small still figures breathe a sigh of gratitude and love. Meanwhile my children, my husband, and I heave a collective sigh of relief and go back to Christmas partying. Jesus is born and home - at our house.
We always set up our Nativity Scene a few weeks before Christmas, with the understanding that Baby Jesus would not go into his manger until he was born. First I'd lay a glittering cloth of fake snow on top of the coffee table for the stable scene to rest upon. The stable, Mary, Joseph, the angel that hung from a peg at the front top of the stable, the donkey and cow, the shepherds, the horde of plastic lambs and sheep, all would be in readiness - and ready to be played with - until Christmas morning.
Cathy was always chosen unanimously to take care of Baby Jesus and place him in the manger on Christmas morning, preferably before presents were opened, because Cathy loved little things, miniature things, like tiny toys and dolls. She enjoyed that miniature Savior! But sometimes everybody would get so caught up in morning Church and their life-size Nativity Scene, hot cocoa and donuts, and the bedlam of festive present opening, that sometimes everybody forgot that Baby Jesus hadn't been born in His stable at our house yet. We had to let him be born, or it wasn't Christmas!
Of course, it wasn't completely Christmas until the Three Wise Men arrived. Tiny fingers enjoyed moving them day by day until they finally gathered around the manger with their presents for the Infant on the Feast of the Epiphany.
Our Nativity Scene grew more and more battered through the years. But it stayed popular, even with the grand-kids, who also enjoyed stuffing the plastic sheep and lambs down the chimneys of the near by miniature Christmas village houses and hid them in every nook and cranny. There's nothing like a Nativity Scene that can be set up, touched, fondled, kissed, played with, to keep the Christmas Story to the forefront during Advent and the Christmas season.
The original Living Nativity Scene came to be in 1223, when that holy man, the poor beggar St. Francis of Assisi, was visiting the small town of Grecio, Italy for Christmas. Since the Franciscan chapel there was too small to hold the congregation for Midnight Mass, he looked outside and found a niche in the rock near the Town Square for the altar. Then, since Mass was to be celebrated outside, he decided to make the occasion truly memorable. He had been to the Holy Land and seen the place where Jesus is reputed to have been born. He decided to replicate it. He prepared a manger, and brought hay, and an ox and an ass.
Francis and the congregation prayed with tears of joy before this holy scene that helped them picture the birth of the One whom Francis called the Poor King, the Babe of Bethlehem.
Within years of Francis' special Nativity scene, every Church in Italy was required o have one, and the traditions of Living Nativities and Nativity Sets spread throughout Christendom.
We have never had a Christmas without this beautiful reminder of Jesus' birth. We eventually retired our old Nativity Set and bought a new one, also unbreakable, and each Christmas we buy a new piece for it. I just placed the scene on our mantel yesterday, surrounded by Christmas flowers. My husband and I still hide Baby Jesus in the hutch's drawer till Christmas morning. The Wise Men are way over on the other side of the mantel, slowly journeying towards the star.
But I've added something new to the scene: a Christmas card given to us by two St. Lawrence parishioners. There's a photo on the front of a sleeping baby, and these words written next to the baby in gold calligraphy:
"A God who became so small could only be Mercy and Love." (St. Therese of Lisieux.)
Without our God coming to us in fragile miniature, there would be no lights, no trees, no Santa Claus. All exist in honor of Him, in honor of Incarnate Mercy and Love, whether people remember Him or not. Looking at our current, modern Christmas decorations, one often wonders "Where is Baby Jesus?" It's our mission as Christians to keep Him firmly in the forefront, right under our children's noses, in a Nativity Set. Hopefully an unbreakable one, with figures they can kiss, and with a horde of plastic sheep and lambs that fit in miniature chimneys.