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Missing something this Christmas Season?

All the boxes were pulled out from the back of the closet, some large, some small, some ripping at the seams but all were covered in a thin layer of dust. Christmas snuck up on me this year and I was so unprepared.

“Do we need to deck all the halls?” I thought selfishly to myself.

“Elle-girl is still young yet, and won’t notice if I left the Christmas Village out. But…she may enjoy it…”

Having a small newborn at Christmas makes yearly festivities a little more challenging. Decorating for Christmas is certainly one of those challenges. My husband came home that night to find that Christmas had exploded all over the living room and on every counter top. I was sitting chest deep in cardboard, tissue paper and tinsel looking frantically for the most important part of our tabletop nativity scene, the Baby Jesus. “I can’t find him!” I exclaimed. “Baby Jesus is missing from the nativity scene!” David assured me he’d turn up somewhere, and commented that the rest of the house looked very nice. “Thanks.” I grumbled not really able to accept the compliment, and defiantly not seeing the beauty in it myself.

This was the year I was going to start the Advent calendar with Elle-Girl.

This was the year she would begin to form an impression of what Christmas really is.

This was the year we would read stories of Jesus’ birth and set up the Nativity scene, and sing “Away in the manger” and “Silent Night

This Christmas is pivotal!

“Perhaps I could set up the Nativity scene anyway?” I pondered

“Is it still a Nativity scene without baby Jesus?”
“Is this breaking some cosmic rule of thumb by leaving out the Christ child?”
“Would anyone who stopped by notice?”
“Could this angel pass as Baby Jesus?”

These were all questions I asked myself, but deep down I really knew the answer was no. Besides what kind of lesson would I be teaching my child by displaying a Nativity scene and leaving out the whole reason we celebrate Christmas?

It was then it occurred to me. A brilliant idea! I would set up the Nativity scene anyway and use this as a lesson for Elle-Girl this Christmas season. Plus, it would give me time to find our baby Jesus, or at least stop by Wal-Mart and buy one.

“I wonder if they sell individual baby Jesus’?”

So the scene was displayed in the middle of our dinning room table. It was the centerpiece, the main attraction! Throughout the month I asked Elle-Girl where was Baby Jesus. We talked about Mary and Joseph, the three Kings, and the Shepard with his Sheep. Elle loved to look at the display, carefully touching each supporting character in the greatest story ever told. And of course reminding me, “See Baby Jesus? No.”

“He’s not here yet.” I would tell her. “But soon it will be his birthday.”

Now, this week, the week of Christmas, I knew I had to find the missing piece of our “Nativity Mystery” the Baby Jesus. I pulled out once again all the boxes, the large the small and the ones ripping at the seams. I emptied everything. Pulled out every tin carton and every hallmark keepsake container. Then there it was, a small, rectangle, and cardboard box, tucked away in the corner of the last opened storage box. I quickly pried open the small package and had never been so happy, and relieved to see a plaster formed figurine. I jumped to my feet and wanted to shout like a sinner in church, that I had found baby Jesus! But instead, I am keeping the joy to myself just a few days more when I wrap the baby back in his tiny box and wrap the box with brightly covered paper and place him as a present right in the middle of the nativity scene to be found and opened on Christmas Day.

The idea is so simple, but the process was a lot of work.

Perhaps, the with holding of the baby Jesus from the tabletop display will become a yearly tradition in our home. Because, I know for me the lesson I learned this year will not be one that is forgotten.

Beth Britton
Beth Brittonhttp://www.haute4momma@blogspot.com
Beth Britton is a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer .She has been a contributing author with Clarksville Online since 2008.
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