Nativity

The little tiny Santa was my mom's -- from the 1930s.
We always put him (& the lamp post)
in with our small white Nativity,
along with some canopic jars, that Sam created from Sculpey
for his 5th grade Egyptian project!
One Christmas vacation memory that I will always cherish is the year (1976, I think) when I had stopped by to visit my friend Marilyn and ended up spending the night with her family because it suddenly started snowing so hard that I couldn't drive home. We pulled on our boots and took a walk outside to see the lighted Nativity in her neighborhood. As we circled back around the block, Marilyn pointed to the fresh footsteps in the snow and said, "Look, someone has been to see the Baby."

Of course, they were our own footprints, for the snowy sidewalks were utterly quiet and untouched by any prints save our own. Yet, there was something so mystical about the way Marilyn said, "Look!" -- almost as if someone unknown to us was also out and about. Good King Wenceslas, perhaps? The Old Lamplighter? Or maybe the Little Drummer Boy.

I often wish that I had asked Marilyn at the time to tell me more about what she was thinking, but now I'll never know. Instead, it lingers as one of those poetic "ponder in your heart" Christmas moments, and that's good too. In fact, maybe that's why I will never forget.

Another favorite,
featuring Shepherd Girl (pink skirt) & Wise Woman (gold scarf)

Manger Scenes with Ben
1991 ~ St. Mary's Church ~ Little Crosby ~ England

1993 ~ St. Francis de Sales Parish ~ Philadelphia

1995 ~ Liverpool Cathedral ~ England

A Stable Lamp is Lighted
A stable lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky
The stars shall bend their voices
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
And straw like gold will shine
A barn shall harbour heaven
A stall become a shrine

This child through David’s city
Will ride in triumph by
The palm shall strew its branches
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
Though heavy, dull and dumb
And lie within the roadway
To pave the Kingdom come

Yet He shall be forsaken
And yielded up to die
The sky shall groan and darken
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
For thorny hearts of men
God’s blood upon the spearhead
God’s love refused again

But now as at the ending
The low is lifted high
The stars will bend their voices
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled

by American Poet Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)