The kids are coming home this week and my schedule has opened up dramatically, so I am hopeful that the last few days of Advent can be spent soaking it all in.

One part of Christmas that I cannot get enough of is the story of Christmas and the nativity. My nativity set is one of my most treasured possessions. I remember as a kid that our nativity set was the centerpiece of Christmas, even more so than the tree. Mom would put it in a place where it was the first thing you saw when you entered the living room. She also made putting it up a special occasion. Each figure was unwrapped slowly, and we discussed their meaning. The last and most important piece was the baby Jesus, and he was carefully placed in a manger made from old barn boards with just a few pieces of straw.

I don’t know what the manger looked like, but I do know what it looks like in my mind: crude, rough and meager, not the place you would expect the King of the World to be born. Somehow that lowly entry into this world makes it more real to me. Having spent a good portion of my life around livestock and barns, I can see, smell and feel what it might have been like. Every time I look at the nativity scene, it draws me in and wraps me up in the moment.

My nativity set has even more meaning to me because my mother made it. Mom was an artist who made clay sculptures, and nativity sets were her specialty. Oh, she made lots of other sculptures, some created from old pictures customers gave her. Her special knack was being able to form a sculpture that took on the personality of its model. She did two kinds of nativity, one that was painted with all the different colors. The other kind she made was simply glazed white. That was how the original set was done and when it came time for her to make my set, that is what I requested. I don’t know why, maybe it was tradition but maybe it was also because the glazed white allowed me to see the scene in my own head and color it accordingly.

My nativity is also a one of a kind. In among all of the other barnyard animals is a blue heeler dog. I know, you are all wondering about a blue heeler dog and the nativity. That dog is Cisco, the first dog Jennifer and I ever had as a married couple, our test kid. It might be kind of silly, but Mom made the addition without telling us. It fits, at least in my little world. We place Cisco next to the manger so she can watch over baby Jesus like she watched over Isaac and Tatum. If you don’t think it is appropriate, I don’t want to hear it. It is perfectly appropriate in my little world and that is all that matters.

The shepherds in my set have come to have more meaning to me over the past few years. I take a great amount of pride in the part of the story where shepherds are the first to be told of the newborn king. I guess I relate with them. Rough and probably kind of smelly, they were not the typical people that would be the first to greet a king. Of course, I don’t know of any other kings born in a barn either. It all makes perfect sense. Jesus came to save even the least of us, and we shepherds are definitely the least of all mankind.

The final pieces of my nativity are the alleged wisemen. I say alleged because that came late and had to ask for directions. If they were so smart, they would have beaten the shepherds there and gone straight to the manger. I guess it was the thought that counts and just like me, they eventually got there after pit stops and detours. We leave the nativity up until the time in January when we celebrate the wisemen’s arrival.

I have a sense of sadness every January when we take the nativity down and carefully pack it up. I admit to feeling a great deal of anxiety each time we carry it up and down the stairs or put it up on the shelf. I know it is just a material possession but what it represents means so much to me, both as a memory of my mother and for what it symbolizes.

I will wish each of you a Merry Christmas and I hope you will be able to take yourself back to that first Christmas and the manger during this Advent Season.