Christmas-time at our House (a.k.a. Weird Christmas!): part 6
We have a few Nativity Scenes around our house:
My sweetie brought this back from a trip overseas a few years ago.
It is a musical ornament and it has a lovely sound.
We also have lots of other nativity ornaments on our tree. It’s covered with them!
Then, we have THE Nativity.
Pretty exciting, eh?
Well, that is what our Nativity looks like right now. After all, isn’t that how the Christmas story starts? In a stable with animals and hay and such?
We do a Progressive Nativity at our house. That means that we start with just the cow and the stable and we add pieces to it as the season goes along. The way we add the pieces helps us to tell the story of Christ’s birth.
(Each of the pictures below should give you a title or description of the photo if you put your mouse cursor over them and wait a second for the text to appear. Mozilla users – I think I got this fixed today so the titles should show for you too…)
The stable, the manger, and the cow have been out for a while now. I usually put them out after St. Nicholas Day. The shepherds are also already keeping watch over their flocks on a bookshelf close to the stable in the hills nearby.
After St. Lucia Day, Mary and Joseph begin their journey from the dining room through the living room and into the entryway Nazareth to Bethlehem. They started on their way today, with their precious one-eared donkey (battle wound from a Christmas past).
Mary and Joseph will travel, with the donkey, all the way to the entryway table Bethlehem, moving to a new place everyday. A few of the possible stops along the way:
On Christmas Eve, the weary travelers make their way to the entryway table Bethlehem, and have to sleep in the stable.
Strange things happen in the stable that night. On Christmas morning, baby Jesus is in the manger!
Christmas Night, the angel comes to the shepherds on the bookcase in the field and tells them of the birth of the Saviour.
And the morning after Christmas (Boxing Day here in Canada), the Shepherds go to the entryway table Bethlehem to see the miracle that they have been told about by the angel. (The Angel – an angel, some angels – goes with them, too, we presume.) The star also appears in the sky above the stable.
Seeing the star in the sky, the Wise Men begin their long journey from the master bedroom a far away land. They make many stops along the way and it takes them 12 days a very long time to get to Bethlehem.
Finally the three kings from the Orient, who have travelled so far, make it to Bethlehem on Epiphany, January 6th.
Lots of fun stuff happens with this nativity during the season.
The kids usually take out and put in various amounts of ‘hay’ from the manger at different times. The shepherds also tend to wander around on the bookshelf hills from day to day (“someone” moves them when the little people aren’t looking during the day).
Each day Mary and Joseph move , and each day the children race around the house Judean countryside looking to see where they are today. [I actually move them when I go to bed at night, so first thing in the morning the kids run to find them.]
On Christmas Eve, when Mary and Joseph finally do make it to the entryway table Bethlehem the kids are SO excited.
On Christmas morning, there’s no mad rush to see what’s under the Christmas tree. The first place the kiddos go is to the Nativity, and I just love hearing them shout, “Baby Jesus is born, Baby Jesus is born!” They take him out and hold him and they say, “Happy Birthday Jesus!”
(more on the rest of Christmas day festivities in another upcoming post)
Christmas Night they check after dinner (when it’s dark) to see if the Angel has arrived yet. Then I move the shepherds and the Angel that night and put up the little oldie-but-a-goodie star. So, Boxing Day means there’s quite a crew in the stable!
Starting the next day, December 27th, the wise men move around on their journey from the master bedroom East. Just like with Mary and Joseph, it’s kind of a contest between the kiddos to see who will find them first. They always laugh at the places I come up with for the kings to travel through. It gets personal for them because the wise men always go through their rooms. I put them in there at night while the kiddos are sleeping, so they wake up with them in the room one day.
The children also know that when the wise men reach Bethlehem they come bringing gifts. That day is also the day that we share the bulk of our family gifts – as the wise men brought gifts to Jesus, so we give gifts to one another.
This is so much fun to do with the kiddos. They love that things move around, and I know it reinforces the story for them.
The best part is still the joy in their voices and faces when they see the Baby Jesus in the manger for the first time on Christmas morning. They always find The Best Gift first, and I just LOVE that!
Original post with comments – worth a look
click for the next post in the series – Whose Birthday is it, Anyway? (Christmas-time at our House: part 7)
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