So, yesterday I came home from work and discovered the donkey, the manger, and the cow on the floor, having been toppled by a happy kitten who left the Holy Parents amusingly ooh-ing and aah-ing over nothing in the stable.
Baby Jesus has been nowhere to be found.
A friend at work suggested perhaps he’s probably had quite an adventure. Intrepid little baby Jesus. (… or is that Baby Jesus? Does the Baby become title case in its holy use?)
In any case, the intrepid little baby Jesus/Baby Jesus was not under the couch, and couch-crouching was roughly my limit once I’d replaced the animals and non-miraculously empty manger, and so we have yet to discover (though hope springs eternal) whether Intrepid Baby Jesus (this title case thing could go on forever!) is, as I surmise, playing happily with dust bunnies under the Boob Tube (see … ?).
All this comes but one day after I put out the nativity in the first place, and it is somewhat dispiriting (har), because the entire holy family were only replaced LAST year as Christmas presents, after my 23-year-old figures in Fine Corinthian Resin suffered the loss of Joseph and Baby, thanks to a drive by Penelope-ing.
Hee. Penelope-ing. *Gigglesnort*
Okay, not funny. We’re speaking of Holy Things, and being respectful (I swear).
My original Joseph had a truly gruesome head wound, in that the entire back of it was gone. Baby Jesus, for his wee yet weighty part, was chewed in a pretty disrespectful way. Puppy teeth just can’t resist a good, somehow-gummy-but-sturdy chew on the finest hardened chemicals. Nom nom, Original Baby Jesus.
The good news is, New Baby Jesus didn’t fall prey to actual teeth (Penelope is baby-gated out of the living room, and Gossamer never puts anything but kibble into his mouth). The bad news is, until I crouch again, He is lost. Not quite so inspiring a Christmas message as His Birth, but the failure to look provides the room for hope. If he’s not under the TV, I may resort to Pla-Doh, not sure I can ask for new Holy Family figures every year. Mom, of course, was mildly scandalized Gossie used the Holy Baby as a toy.
Me, I don’t know how he got on the table and only knocked over the cow, the donkey, and the baby, but he’s a remarkably nimble little demon. With velvet toes. So there’s that.
Here is my question, as regards flags. When you have two holy figures to retire - is it like the American flag? Do you burn them? (Seems contra-indicated, given that stuff about chewy chemical goodness.) I suspect I know an archaeologist who would suggest a burial - perhaps one of them here on my coast, and the other on his, just to be smart-alec. Perhaps the right choice.
What would you do?
The remaining/unretired Nativity set, for its part, remains where it was ... for now. I live dangerously.
Kind of like the Intrepid Baby Jesus. I have this mental image he’s miraculously weaving pet fur into tiny little harnesses, and riding the dustbunnies quite ragged. Yes: wearing palazzo pants.
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Your cat is trying to teach you how to put out a Nativity scene: you leave the manger empty until midnight on Christmas Eve. Some people don't add in the three kings until Epiphany - but then you have to take the whole lot down straight away, so that's a bit extreme.
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