Jordan's Creche for This Year

We tend to decorate late for the holidays. We like to have a live tree and keep it set up for all 12 days of Christmas, so we generally don’t put the tree up until around the second week in December.

However, we do maintain a tradition of putting up a creche scene on the first day of Advent so that it can serve as a setting for family worship during the season.



Another aspect of the tradition, which we put in place when my son was four, is that he sets up the crËche on his own. There is no input from the adults.

Through the years there have been some oddities to the scene. The very first year he set it up he had all the people and animals gathered in close to the manger wherein Baby Jesus was to be placed on Christmas morning. All but Mary. She was off in a corner by herself. I remember thinking that year that a new mother in her situation might be happy to have a moment alone.

Two years ago, Jordan set up a crazy scene. It looked like all the pieces had been dropped from a great height or a bomb had hit or something. I wrote two blog posts about that particular manger scene. It wasn’t exactly reminiscent of "peace on earth."  (Jordan's Strange Creche and A Broken World...Seeking Peace.)

This year, Jordan decided to be intentionally ordinary, to make the creche as normal as possible.

Well… Mary and Joseph are kneeling by the manger. The cow is in the stable. The shepherds have a tent. The angel on top doesn’t have cymbals hanging around her shoulders.

The villagers are going about their business in an organized fashion. There is no camel on the roof and nothing hanging from the loft or sitting upside down on the ladder. At first glance, it is quite ordinary.

But Jordan did leave his mark. A mother and child figure are visiting the stable. The boy has dropped his toys and a few musical instruments which are at his feet.

Over by the manger is a toy that the boy has left for Jesus. (You can see it in front of the sheep.) According to Jordan he was going to leave one of his "ok" toys but ended up leaving one of his best ones. (He figured his mother would want him to give a good one.)

There in the midst of the ordinary view of things is something new ….. although steeped in one of the central themes of The Story. Christmas is about receiving Christ and about giving our best to Him.

　

How will you make the Christmas story

new in your family this year?