Well. This is embarrassing.
Kasia December 17th, 2007
By the merciful grace of God, I was given a snow day today.
(OK, by the fact that the Detroit public schools - in fact, ALL public school districts in the tri-county area except Grosse Pointe - were closed today, which is the benchmark for Monsignor to close the Cathedral office for the day. But I still see God’s hand in it.)
Anyway. I decided to sleep in a little, then do some cleaning, laundry, etc. Maybe I could even get some Christmas decorating done!
I had to dredge through many, MANY boxes in my storage unit in order to find what I was looking for: my grandmother’s creche (I will have to go back and look for the cheat-sheet that tells me how to put the appropriate accent onto that “e”). Most of them had Poppytrail dishes in them. That’s a story for another day.
ANYway, so I find the creche and stable and haul them upstairs. Good-o. I clear off the dining room table, put a nice tablecloth that Grandmère de Canuque crocheted for me last year on to protect the table finish, pull out the stable, clean it off, and begin to set up the creche.
I know better than to put Jesus into the manger yet, so I set that figure into a drawer. (Yes, I’m sure it’s disrespectful, but I’m sure He knows that I don’t mean it to be so.) I’m sorting out Wise Men, their camels and attendants, sheep, other animals, angels, Mary…umm, which one of these is Joseph?
At first I thought it was the guy in the brown, kneeling. But I don’t think so. He’s one of two very similar figures, so I think they’re meant to be shepherds.
Oh. OH. So it must be…this guy with the white beard, who’s standing but slightly hunched over?
I only heard in very recent years about the tradition that Joseph was much older than Mary (and about Mary’s perpetual virginity). I am quite sure that every time I set up that creche in years past, I probably put the wrong guy in Joseph’s place. Oops…
Hopefully St. Joseph has a sense of humor. And hopefully the Lord does as well.
If you think what you did is bad…..let me tell you about how I used to set up the nativity.
Putting out the nativity has always been my favorite thing to do at Christmas. When I was little I would carefully set out all the figures, saving Baby Jesus for last (and being Protestant then, Jesus would be placed into the scene the same as the rest of the figures).
So one year I had I brilliant idea, I put Baby Jesus in “his room” which was of course the hayloft! My mother was mortified and He was relocated.
Needless to say your putting Him in the drawer or my housing Him for the time being inside the piano bench is an upgrade! If anyone is hoping for a sense of humor from the Lord or the saints it would most likely have to be me.
Oh, I think that’s cute! I mean, first off you were little, right? But even so, it sort of makes sense: you knew He was born in the stable, so the hayloft would be like a bedroom…very, very clever!!!
And if the Lord doesn’t have a sense of humor, maybe He’ll at least let us do our time in Purgatory together…
I don’t even have a nativity….
Maybe God knows that it would be all kinds of disrespectful for me to put one out when I have Destructo-Kittens, who woulod probably try to eat all the people.
“No! YOU canNOT receive Jesus in that manner! Eucharist is NOT for kitties! And that’s not a properly consecrated host anyway!”