THE CHRISTMAS STORY...

Note:  Some years ago I began to host an open house every other Christmas as a personal missionary event where I displayed my beautiful--and now extensive--collection of Nativities.  It was principally for my non-member neighbors and friends, but has come to include many people from work, church, and former neighborhoods as my guests. 

The Young Women have also come each time and spent the third hour of their Sunday meeting block for this special lesson in my home.  I have given the following comments pretty much the same every year as a backdrop for the girls' opportunity to look at all the nativities.  

And, every year I have given each of them a special ornament as a keepsake and a reminder of this one wonderful night which changed the history of the world.  Some years it was a small nativity.  Two years ago it was a star.  This year it was something different, and I added a side-bar at the end of the lesson as to why I chose to give the ornament I did. 

So, read on and pretend you are listening in as the girls sat on the floor, the steps, and on the few spaces available on the couch and chair to hear this wonderful story--once again.

(P.S.  There was a glitch when I transferred the copy from one tile to another, and the format of the type is different.  Sorry...hope it doesn't detract too much from your reading.)

THE CHRISTMAS STORY         

AND WHY GEORGIA COLLECTS NATIVITIES

Years ago, when I was a young married woman with two darling blond-haired toddler boys, I was called to teach Relief Society.  The fourth lesson of the month was titled Cultural Refinement, and that year the curriculum was the New Testament.  These were lessons about great literature, but also added to that were the culture and refinement of art and music.  November’s lesson that year (1972) was about the birth of the Savior.

I learned the humble beginnings of Mary’s greatness.  All the young women in Israel were aware that God’s son was to come to earth.  Each aspired to—and imagined—what it would be like if she were the chosen one.  When the angel Gabriel came to Mary and revealed the coming event, it was with great humility that she acknowledged this favored role as being hers. 

Mary was probably as young as 15 years of age—just about the age of you girls.  Joseph had probably finished his carpenter’s apprenticeship, and was in a financial position to take a wife, but instead of being an old man as many of the paintings show, he might not have been more than in his early 20’s.  Betrothal was as binding as a marriage contract in Hebrew society, and when Joseph found out that Mary was going to have a baby, he wanted to spare her the embarrassment and penalty divorce would bring to her.  Therefore, the angel visited Joseph, too, and assured him of Mary’s purity and that her approaching experience would be as the mother of the son of God.

The taxing and registration in Bethlehem for the House of David was the 2^nd of three such registrations at intervals of about 20 years.  And so, Mary and Joseph set out to fulfill the decree of Caesar Augustus, even though Mary was very far along in her pregnancy.

Mary probably baked the bread, dried the meat, filled a sack with lentils, and poured water from the well into a goatskin.  She also packed the swaddling clothes—long strips of cloth to wrap the baby in when it was born—which she knew she would need before their return as Nazareth was 90 miles from Bethlehem.  (About the same distance as Johnstown to Colorado Springs).  They would have to make the long trip up and down hills by donkey.  Joseph must have gently helped Mary onto the back of the donkey every morning and walked by her side, watching carefully so that the donkey would not make a misstep. 

When they got to Bethlehem—you know the story—there was no room for them at the inn.  So, they had to go to a stable.  Actually, that wasn’t considered an awful place, as we would think it was, as the floors of average homes were of packed earth in those days, and often the poor who lived in towns kept animals in their homes.  So, it was there in the stable in Bethlehem, that Mary delivered her son and laid him in the straw of the oxen’s crib.

The star—which was a natural phenomenon that scientists believe was probably the juxtaposition of celestial bodies recorded by ancient astronomers—signaled to the shepherds where to go.  They arrived that night amidst a glorious heavenly chorus in which you and I more than likely participated. 

Continuing with the story, the Wise Men didn’t arrive until the baby Jesus was about two years old.  Before they arrived bringing their gifts, they stopped to ask Herod the King where the new king was.  Herod cunningly told the Wise Men to return and tell him where the baby was when the Wise Men found him so he could go and pay tribute to Him, too.  Of course, once the Wise Men had seen Jesus, they took a different route home.  When Herod realized he had been tricked, he ordered that all Hebrew baby boys under the age of two be put to death.  It was at that time Joseph was warned in a dream to take his little family and flee to Egypt.

Now mind you, prior to this lesson I used to feel sorry for anyone who had a baby sometime during the holidays.  Is all I could think of was the inconvenience, the extra preparation, the additional demands of a new baby—all at a time that was supposed to be fun for everyone.  But after I prepared this special lesson, I thought what a wonderful time to have a baby—a time when a woman could share, at least in part, Mary’s wonderful experience in the holy sphere of motherhood.  I could see myself as I imagined Mary, when her child was born, being uplifted from the whole experience—hard though it was—and being indescribably ecstatic when she saw her baby for the first time, just like I was.  Beautiful first-born boy!

And, I have to confess, I wasn’t too keen on Christmas carols either until I taught this lesson.  Oh, I liked Deck the Halls and We wish You a Merry Christmas.  Silver Bells was okay. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town was fun.  But Silent Night?  PLEEEEEEZE!!  Away in a Manger and some of the others?  Double PLEEZE!!!  Didn’t occur to me that among the countless number of Christmas carols which fill the world—and I am talking Christmas carols, not Christmas songs—not one would ever have been composed or sung had Jesus Christ not come to redeem mankind.  Now I listen to the words of O Little Town of Bethlehem, or O Holy Night or any of the others and I am totally amazed that these people, who wrote and composed the carols long before the Gospel as we know it was restored, knew Christ’s role as Savior and Redeemer, that he came to save us from our own sins through His atonement.  What a testimony!

Christmas artwork through the ages—all those ugly Virgin Marys with those ugly little babies.  Ugh! Ugh! And ugh! But I learned why they looked the way they did, and I also learned why some paintings have the shepherds and other principle characters in the Nativity dressed like Renaissance Europe.  It was then that I decided it was important for me to express my feelings about the Savior’s birth by choosing Christmas greetings that reflect the “First Christmas”.  So, every year since then I have always tried to send cards that have a Nativity scene instead of Santa Claus or whatever the current style is for Christmas—trees, reindeer, snowmen, forest creatures and that generic Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings.

And now we are finally at the part why you are here—to enjoy most of the Nativity sets I have collected over the years.  It was because of this lesson I taught 45 years ago when my oldest boy was just over three and my second boy just a toddler of 18 months.  I had a great yearning to display something that would show my “conversion” to the religious side of Christmas, and the real purpose for celebrating. 

But we didn’t have any money for that!  I didn’t get to go to the store very often as the stores which had Nativity sets were way too far away to ride a bike to get there.  (We only had one car which my husband always drove, and I rode a bike to get around the neighborhood and to church.)  Besides when I did get to Joslin’s or The Denver or May D & F, the Nativity sets for sale might as well have been a million dollars.  There was no way I could afford one.  Hence, the truly ugly original one, peopled with cone bodies topped by painted wooded bead heads and “dressed” in scraps from my sewing projects, came into being. 

It was a Family Home Evening project.  The little boys’ daddy—my first husband—went outside and found a good-sized twig to make the stable then backed it with a piece of shredded bark.  I “helped” little fingers glue robes on the figures.  One crown was made out of aluminum foil, one of the Wise Men’s gifts was a beef bouillon cube, another gift was a small screw wrapped in foil, another was a tiny square piece of gold cardboard.  The animals in the stable were more like farm animals such as a pig (which NEVER would have been there for real!), a cow, and a sheep. 

That Nativity scene, which never really satisfied my desire and just whetted my appetite for a “real” Nativity set, was actually cute at the time.  Anyone who came to visit was delighted with the originality and intent.  It has held a place of honor all these years.  Now, 45 years later, the number of Nativity sets I own total close to 400 plus, including Nativity ornaments.  And they come from all over the world: places where we lived and visited, from my missionary sons whose first instruction was to “bring me back a Nativity set!”, from friends as gifts, and when I see something new and unusual I would like to add to my collection.  Believe me when I tell you there is a “story” behind almost every one of them. 

The wonderful events of the “First Christmas” have all been chronicled over the years by painters, poets, song writers, craftsmen, and just about anyone else who felt the urge to bear testimony of this great and glorious event.  They have portrayed the whole scene, the Holy Family with just the shepherds or just the Wise Men, or singly as just Mary and the baby Jesus.  There are some with just animals and the baby, just Mary and Joseph, the journey to Bethlehem, the flight into Egypt, and a dozen scenarios as a combination of those themes.  You will see all those selections displayed throughout the house today.  You’ll also see a lot in the loft at the top of the stairs that I like to call the “Lamanite” nativities.

All Nativity scenes throughout the world can be found in a huge selection of mediums—paint, clay, glass, porcelain, wood, rock, straw, corn husks, egg shells, fabric, string, crystal, paper, nut shells, words, even bouillon cubes, cardboard—anything and everything at hand or specifically planned to craft a representation of the event, including USPS postage stamps!  You will also see that is true of the ones in my collection.

As I mentioned before, you would expect the figures in a Nativity set to look like people in the Holy Land.  That isn’t necessarily true, though.  And you may wonder why some of the shepherds have floppy hats and knee pants, or Mary has blond hair, or the wise men are on horses.  Though Joseph is most often depicted with a lantern, the other figures are represented by various styles and cultures during the time they were created. 

The floppy hat shepherds are usually Dutch or Italian, at least patterned after those done during the Renaissance.  The figures that are dressed very richly with wide borders of woven and embroidered trimming around the edges of the sleeves and hems of the garments are a depiction of the Nativity as seen by the Byzantine Empire, around the 4^th century when the Roman Empire Capitol moved to Constantinople.  I have a painting somewhere in the basement—I couldn’t find it—by a French painter by the name of Le Roi who painted the Nativity in a cave—which is actually what historians think is the original stable.

So, look around and check out the differences and the similarities in what is displayed. And see if you can notice how, from the oldest to the newest, the baby figure has moved from the manger to Mary’s arms and even some figures that show Joseph AND Mary holding the baby together.   Joseph has certainly been given a much more supportive role in some of the depictions.

Perhaps you remember that song in Primary about all the things Joseph did before they left for Bethlehem and then after baby Jesus was born.  This poem also reminds us what a central role Joseph played in this great event.

Joseph  By Gilbert Thomas

Who has not caroled Mary,

And who her praise would dim?

But what of humble Joseph:

Is there no song for him?

If Joseph had not driven

Straight nails through honest wood;

If Joseph had not cherished

His Mary as he should:

If Joseph had not proven him

A sire both kind and wise:

Would he have drawn with favor

The child’s all-probing eyes?

Would Christ have prayed “Our Father”

Or cried that name in death,

Unless he first had honored

Joseph of Nazareth?

When we lived in Sweden in the early 1980’s, the ornaments on the Christmas trees were all hearts.  The gingerbread wasn’t baked into Gingerbread Boys or Gingerbread Houses.  It was baked into heart shapes, some as big as a dinner plate, and hung on the tree!  And there were also heart-shaped straw ornaments and paper hearts, too.

It seemed odd to me, who was still a fairly young woman and steeped in our own American culture where hearts were the predominate decoration for Valentine’s Day—NOT Christmas.

But I’ve thought a lot about that since our time in Sweden, and I have decided that a heart is a VERY appropriate symbol for Christmas.  That is because THE CHRISTMAS STORY is a story of love.

It is the story of God’s love for us by sending His firstborn spirit child to earth to be His only begotten son in the flesh.  It is the story of Jesus Christ who loved us so much He agreed to come to earth to be our Savior and Redeemer.  It is the story of Joseph’s love for Mary that he didn’t divorce her or put her away when he learned she was going to have a baby.  It is the story of Mary’s love for her perfect little baby. 

That’s why I decided that the ornament I am going to give you this year is a little blown-glass heart.  Let it be a reminder that this Christmas can be the story of your love for those who are around you that may be in that need of “charitable thoughts and words”.   Write a special love story of your own this month…over and over and over.

So now—go on a treasure hunt!  Find a favorite and share with me why it appeals to you.  Merry Christmas!