Second Sunday in Advent

I really love this nativity set. It has been a part of my Christmas since I was about, oh, seven years old. It is still wrapped in the original retro orange-patterned tissues and packed into the same box that it was packed into at my grandmother’s house in 1978. We have only lost one sheep and a shepherd in thirty years. Oh, and the angel’s wings have been glued up several times.

I love that the children quietly rearrange the set sometimes, to reflect their own inner versions of the Christmas story, just as I did as a child. Yesterday Posy dragged a chair over to the mantelpiece and chatted to herself for a while. When asked, she told me that the King was giving Baby Jesus a present, while Joseph went out to see to the camel.

‘I think they eat carrots, like reindeer.’