Setting the Table for Christmas by Sue Wright
The star-topped tree was up and decorated, all the presents piled beneath its artificial boughs except for the surprises Santa would deliver Christmas morning. Piney garland dotted with red and green bows and giant jingle bells covered the mantle. Christmas cards received during Advent had been taped to the woodwork here and there, lending their “glad tidings” to the festive décor.
Only one thing was left for getting the house ready to celebrate the “Reason for the Season,” and that was bringing out the family’s manger scene, the one purchased decades ago by Grandma Martin and handed down to her daughter when she and Grandpa had downsized.
“Let’s see, kids,” said Anna Brown, Mrs. Martin’s daughter, posing as though weary from deliberating a question of international importance. “Where should we locate Bethlehem this year?”
“How about the coffee table?” giggled Sara, Anna’s own daughter, ten years old. She smiled impishly because she knew the answer without thinking. That was always where they recreated the Nativity.
“Sounds good to me!” said Anna who carried a box marked Grandma’s Creche into the living room.
“Run get your dad and brothers, Sara. We’ll draw for figures, pass them out, and on Christmas Eve, tell their stories.”
By the time everyone was gathered around Anna, she had written the words, shepherds, sheep, angel, donkey and cows, Mary and Joseph, Baby Jesus, and The Three Wisemen on five separate pieces of paper folded tightly and tossed into a coffee mug from the kitchen.
“Tom, you go first,” said Anna. “After that, Sara, Hank, Dad, and me.”
Diving his little fingers into the mug, Tom pulled out the names, Mary and Joseph. In response, Anna placed the creche’s holy couple into Tom’s eight-year-old fingers.
“Here you go,” she said. “They’re yours for safe keeping until tomorrow night. Then, don’t forget. Everybody has to tell a story for the figures they’ve drawn before they’re added to the stable.”
Eight o’clock the next evening, which was Christmas Eve, the Browns assembled around the coffee table, carols sounding from their favorite CD—their roles ready to perform. Practice making perfect, six-year-old Hank had begun to moo and bray, obviously the one who had drawn the cows and donkey. Plunking his two cows and the donkey onto the stable’s straw-strewn floor, he was eager to recite the lines he had been rehearsing all day.
“Hello donkey,” he said as a cow. “You must be tired from your long trip. Eat some hay and take a nap!”
After that, Hank laid the donkey on his side, took a bow, and let out another “Moo.”
“I’m next,” cried Tom, and in a moment, he had Mary and Joseph posted on either side of the manger, his bit begun with a sigh.
“What a place to have a baby,” he grumbled in his best Joseph voice. And then imitating Mary, he said, “It’s okay. We should just be thankful the innkeeper was kind enough to share this warm bit of space
with us.”
Immediately, Anna pulled Baby Jesus from hiding behind her back and was snuggling him gently into the manger now a crib.
“It was love at first sight for Mary,” Anna whispered. “That’s the way we mothers are with our babies.”
Meanwhile, Sara had crossed the room for the cardboard box she had made to look like a small hillside.
“We’re over here,” she shouted, “and sorta afraid. The angel Gabiel has appeared out of nowhere to tell us that the Christ Child has been born, and we should leave what we’re doing and go find him. One shepherd has told Gabriel ‘Okay,’ but the other shepherd just yelled back, ‘I can’t right now. A lamb is lost.’ The angel replies, ‘Let me help. We’ll look for him together!’”
Soon the lamb will not only be back in the fold but both shepherds and three of the sheep, plus Sara, and Gabriel the angel are huddled around the Baby with everybody else.
His arms loaded, Mr. Brown speaks as he rises from his chair. “Guess it’s my turn,” he says, “though we all know the Wisemen weren’t really in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. In fact, Jesus was probably toddling around in diapers by the time they discovered him. So, guys, it’s up to you. Should we grant the Magi some poetic license and let them show up in time for the party? Or should we wait until Epiphany to put them in the picture?”
Hearing the children beg for the Wisemen to be included, Mr. Brown grinned with a wink and crammed the three kingly men, two camels, and an elephant into the already crowded manger scene. Which only proved once again what the Browns had learned from years of reading and reenacting the Scriptures: There may have been “no room in the inn,” but there will always be room in the stable…Merry Christmas, everyone!
