The Christmas set manufactured by Playmobil includes an angel, a donkey, a cow, two sheep, one shepherd, a manger, a little baby, Mary, Joseph, a camel, and three elaborately equipped Wise Men.
When she went downstairs to the storage room with her dad and Uncle Jeff the other day, this is what Emma Grace brought up. We had been away from home and her toys for a week, and when we got back what she wanted to play with more than anything was the Christmas set from Playmobil.
She played for hours. Hours. I took a nap. Bill went to the store, accompanied by Everett. William read on the sofa. Emma Grace played at Christmas.
The books stacked on the coffee table were a perfect hillside for the solitary shepherd and his sheep. “I bring you tidings of great joy….” The Wise Men, loaded down with their treasures, made slow and steady progress across the coffee table to the little shed. Each of these visitors gathered around the manger. The animals, with the exception of the sheep, were peering in the window; the Wise Men unpacked their goodies and set them on the ground. After my nap, I oversaw this reenactment. We brought some votive candles and I lit them for her and placed them around the stable. She closed the shutters and turned off the lights, her face aglow with the mystery of this Birthday and its assortment of participants.
Well, I thought to myself, we don’t really know when his birthday was, do we? There were shepherds abiding in the fields, after all, keeping watch over their flocks by night. I’ve heard it said that that reference alone implies a summer or springtime event. Who’s to say it didn’t happen in June?
We blew out the candles and turned the lights back on. I became engaged in an UNO game with William. But Emma Grace continued to play, trying to make Mary sit on the donkey, trying to make a Wise Man sit on a camel.
And then, an odd development. The Holy Family were seated in a red Mustang convertible, speeding over the living room carpet. And they parked next to Everett’s car mat—you know what I mean: the little carpet with roads pictured all over it, where you can spend hours pushing Matchbox cars around. Yes, the Holy Family parked that Mustang over there by the car mat, pulling up close to the NASCAR racetrack pictured there. Because what else is one expected to do, after all? After you’ve given birth to the Son of God and been visited by shepherds and Wise Men and received all that frankincense and myrrh? Why, I’ll tell you: you go to the races.
