This year, the children have shown much interest in the Nativity story. This has largely been helped by school. Our daughter has played the proud part of an innkeeper in the school play and our son has been very busy ‘sounding out’ the word ‘Bethlehem’. We have also had the Travelling Holy Family visit us, which has caused much discussion. This a group of nativity figures, knitted by our village Mother’s Union, who travel around different families in the village in the weeks leading up to Christmas, finally arriving at the Church on Christmas Eve. Each family keeps it for a night and is allowed to keep one of the knitted sheep as a momento. This thrilled the children and as I set about reading them the Christmas story accompanying it, I was a little unprepared for the mass of questions that followed.
My four-year-old son, needless to say, was most interested in The Baddy, also known as King Herod and was desperately disappointed that his picture did not appear in any of the nativity stories we have in our house. He was also interested in what jobs Mary and Jospeh did. My daughter answered this question without hesitation, saying, “Mary was a cleaner and Joseph was a builder.” When asked why she thought Mary was a cleaner, she confidently replied, “Because she carries a broom.” I should have known that any child would have come to the same conclusion as Mary is often portrayed sweeping around the stable – impressive when you have travelled on a donkey for hundreds of miles before giving birth. Joseph of course carries tools, explaining his building expertise.
The questionning then moved onto the gifts. After giving the briefest explanations of gold, frankincense and myrrh, which I could clearly see puzzled them, my son asked, “Did Father Christmas come to the stable that night and leave Jesus a stocking?” Oh goodness, this was getting tricky. Thankfully, my daughter changed the subject and said, “It was a bit like a christening. The kings and shepherds were Jesus’ godparents.” Well, that is a good way of looking at it and we were on safer territory than Rudolph and his sleigh landing on the roof of the stable.
Later that afternoon, my son was peering at the small wooden nativity scene in our sitting room, clearly deep in thought. He turned to me and said, “Mummy, how did they all go to the loo in the stable?” I pondered briefly as to whether I should launch into the inventions of modern appliances and decided against it. I expect they just used a corner of the stable, I explained. That evening as I passed the stable, I looked down to see a small wooden loo, which had been moved from the dolls house to pride of place at the front of the stable beside the crib. Well, we do try don’t we!
