Away In A Manger

Also posted at The Arty Blog

A week or so before Christmas, we put up the Manger scene. The dragons brought in small evergreen and holly branches to arrange around the Stable. It took a while to do this to everyone's satisfaction. Winsome wanted to make a tiny wreath to hang on the Stable door, and got very upset when he realized that our stable didn't have a door. Vincent made festoons across the front of the roof instead. And, we made a sort of nest around the Stable with the remaining greenery.

Finally I said, "I think that's enough to be going on with. Very nice, fellas."

"What next?" asked Vincent, who had a holly leaf stuck behind his ear.

I surveyed the Stable. "We really ought to have something to scatter on the floor. Straw or something."

"How about Styrofoam popcorn?" Winsome suggested. "We have lots of that." He pointed to a large bag of it inside the kitchen door.

"Well, yes, we have lots of it," I said, trying hard to look and sound serious. "But, that's not really the criterion for what to use in the Manger."

Vincent, who loved learning new words, asked with gleaming eyes, "What is the crittrion, then?"

"Cry teer ee on," I said. "It means basis for judgment or decision or, in this case, choice. And, the criterion for us in the present case isn't what we happen to have a lot of, but what would have been around in the Stable in Bethlehem. I don't know much about stables, but I know there aren't usually a lot of Styrofoam peanuts, or popcorn, or whatever they are around in stables."

"What is there, then?" Vincent and Winsome asked together. They were sitting still, looking at me with all their attention.

"Well," I said, wishing I knew more than I did about farm life. "There's straw for the animals to sleep in, and hay for them to eat. Thats why I really want hay or straw. Because, you see, when Baby Jesus was born, his mama, Our Blessed Lady Mary, had to put him down to sleep in a manger. That's the place where the farmer puts the hay for the animals. See?" I held up the small figure of Baby Jesus from the Nativity set. "He's lying in hay or straw. So, it's customary to put hay or straw on the stable floor."

Winsome looked as though he were thinking hard. "Straw," he said. "That's one, like 'a' straw."

"Stringular," Vincent said knowledgeably.

"Singular," I corrected, smiling. I knew they weren't listening.

Winsome was looking at the Stable. "We don't need straw stringular," he said, measuring the stable floor with his paw. "We need straws, poolwell, lots of straws." He looked around excitedly. "We have straws, a whole box of 'em."

"Yes," I began. "But that's not..." I stopped and threw a helpless look up towards Heaven. Winsome was gliding into the kitchen. In a moment, I heard him rummaging in the drawer where we kept the paper napkins, the plastic utensils, and the straws, plural. How could I argue with his logic? When you came down to it, he was right.

"What's not what?" Vincent asked anxiously. "Aren't straws poolwell?"

I sighed. "Yes, straws are plural," I said, reaching over to give Vincent a quick hug. "And, Winsome's right, I suppose, that we could use them. I never thought of it before, that's all."

"You never thought of lots of things before you had us," Vincent said contentedly, hugging me back.

"That's true."

Winsome swooped down to set the box of straws on the tabletop in front of the Stable. "Don't I get a hug too?" he asked. "I'm the one who figured out that we need straws, poolwell."

"Of course," I said, and squeezed him.

"Humph," he said, a small jet of fire narrowly missing my left ear. "Don't squish me. I have work to do." But, he cuddled against me for a moment just the same.

Vincent was busy opening the box. He pulled two or three straws out and placed them experimentally in the Stable. "I don't know," he said. "They seem kind'a long."

I got the scissors, and we had fun cutting several straws to different lengths and strewing them artistically on the Stable floor.

"There," Vincent said when we were finished. "The animals will feel at home now."

I personally doubted that the camels, sheep, oxen and donkey would know what to make of green, blue, pink, and yellow plastic straw, but I kept my doubts to myself. "Now we can set up the figures, the people and animals themselves," I told the dragons. They came close and tried to look in the small box holding the figures. "Baby Jesus goes in the middle," I said. "You can put him there, Winsome, since Vincent set the angel on the top of the tree. Be careful, now." With some misgivings, I handed Baby Jesus to Winsome and directed him where to position the manger.

He placed it carefully and moved back. "Good. Now Vincent, put Our Lady on this side. That's right. And, Winsome, St Joseph goes on the other side."

Winsome hesitated, St Joseph poised in mid air. "That doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't make sense?" I asked in surprise, unwrapping the first Wise Man.

"Well," Winsome said, looking from Mary beside the Manger to Joseph in his paw. "Our Lady is Baby Jesus's mama, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"And St Joseph is Baby Jesus's papa, isn't he?"

I swallowed. My dragons were bright, but I wasn't sure they grasped the finer points of Christian theology. And, not being a trained religion teacher or youth minister, I didn't feel quite up to explaining it. "Uh," I said. "Well, foster papa. Adopted papa."

Winsome waved away such technicalities. "St Joseph adopted Baby Jesus like you adopted us. That makes him Baby Jesus's papa," he said confidently, and I smiled. "So, if she's the mama and he's the papa, that means they're married, right?"

"Right."

"So," Winsome said, placing Joseph carefully, "if they're married, then he should be beside her, like this. Because, he has to help her take care of the baby. And, besides, married people always sit together."

I looked at Mary and Joseph, side by side next to the Manger, and thought that it did make sense. It wasn't right, though, and I couldn't imagine how to explain why.

But Vincent rescued me. "That's not how it goes," he said firmly. He moved Joseph to the correct position. "That's how it should be."

"How do you know?" demanded Winsome.

"Because, that's how the one at church is."

Winsome looked doubtful. "Are you sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure. You should pay more attention."

"OK, OK," I said quickly, laying a restraining hand on Winsome's head. "Don't be smug, Vincent. And, You, Winsome, don't attack your brother. You know I don't want the two of you fighting." They backed apart, heads down. "It's a good idea," I told Winsome, running my hand soothingly down his back ridge. "Tell you what. You can draw a picture afterwards of how you think the Manger scene ought to look. All right?"

Winsome looked up hopefully. "All right," he said in a subdued voice.

"And you, Vincent," I said, turning to him. "That was good observing." I put my other hand on his head, and he too looked happier. "But, it's not quite so important for everybody else to b in exactly the same place in every Creche."

"Creche?" they asked, coming close again to look at me.

"That's right," I said, wishing I could remember always to use the same word for things that had several names. "Sometimes the Manger scene is called a Creche." I hesitated, desperately searching my mind for the origin of the word, and not finding it. "I think it's a French word."

"Oh," they said, apparently satisfied.

"So," I went on quickly, "you can sort of put everyone else where you want them, except that the Wise Men, the Three Kings here," I gestured toward them standing on the table, "stand together. And, the announcing angel, the one with the scroll, stands at the head of the Manger." Very glad that the announcing angel in this set had a scroll rather than a trumpet, I rummaged for the angel and set him in place. What would the dragons have said about someone blowing a trumpet right over Baby Jesus' head! "There you are," I said. "You can take over now."

I watched for a moment, smiling, as they carefully set the other figures in place. Then, taking up my mug of tea, I looked out at the louring sky beyond the branches of a large beech that grew near the den window. There'd be more snow today. I blinked. Yes, large flakes were drifting slowly through the still air. It was a good day to stay inside and...

"That's not right, is it?"

Startled back to myself, I turned to the dragons. Winsome seemed puzzled rather than upset, his head bent close to the open front of the Stable.

Vincent made the squirming motion that is the dragon equivalent of shrugging. "The baby lammy just wanted to get up close to Baby Jesus," he said. "I donno, it just seemed right somehow. I'll move her if you want me to. He reached past "Winsome.

Winsome shook his head. "Ask Mama," he said, backing away.

"Ask Mama what?" I said on queue as the dragons turned to me, Vincent with the lamb held carefully in his paw.

"Vincent wants to put that lammy right up next to Baby Jesus," Winsome explained, waving a paw vaguely. He looked as if he didn't quite understand why the idea troubled him.

"She wants to keep Baby warm," Vincent put in. He looked at me anxiously. "Is it OK, Mama?"

I thought of snow, and wind, and the dark sky lit by a strange new star, and a bitterly cold cave warmed only by the closeness and the soft breath of animals. And I smiled at Vincent. "Yes, I think it will be all right, I said. Put your lammy there by the Baby. After all, Jesus is a lamb too, the Lamb of God; and, so, it is fitting that the little lamb would recognize and love him."

The dragons exchanged a startled look. They plainly had no idea what I was talking about. But, after a moment, Vincent reached in and set the lamb close to the Manger.

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