Well I don't. Okay, so we have been over this multiple times now, I love holidays. Everything about them. I mean like a 5-year-old kid I love them. Two of my most favorite things about Christmas are Nativity Scenes and snow globes. So if you put the two together, it just makes for a real giddy me. I can remember as a kid we used to have a super tacky (now looking back!) life-size, plastic, light-up, Nativity scene we would put on our porch. Putting it out was the highlight of decorating. Jojo and I never fought over who put the Angel on top of the tree, but when it came to who got to put baby Jesus in the manger on the front porch, like we had to alternate years. We put this thing out for years, even after Joseph's head had fallen off and mom would glue it back on every year. There has always been something special about a Nativity Scene that makes me stop, even for just a second, and ponder. I think a lot about how my view of that miraculous night changes a bit every year, gaining a new appreciation of how my Lord and Savior was brought into this world.
So this year, since we have moved, mom gave me the ultimate snow glob. I used to fill my room with like 30 singing snow globes (plastic of course-Mom learned her lesson and she didn't name me Grace for a reason!) BUT there was always this one, big, fancy, glass, Nativity Scene snow globe that she would set out in the den. It played Away in a Manger. I always loved it and this year she gave it to me so it sits on our dresser. Last night as I was running around trying to get presents together, packing, baking, cleaning, and listening to Jess laugh about how we lived in a barn and our stuff was 'overlapping', I happen to look up at the snow globe and stop.
Yes, we are living in a fixed up barn currently, but Jesus was BORN in a stable! I am sure the barn we are in would seem like the Queen's Palace compared to where our Savior was brought into this world. I think about the bravery of Joseph and how scared Mary had to have been. I wouldn't have exactly wanted to be Mary. Okay, not only did she miss the epidural (hence the reason I don't think the night was too silent), sanitized sheets, birthing classes, or c-section, she was a young teenager away from her family giving birth to the Messiah. I think about the smells of the stable. I'm from Franklin County, I know what a barn smells like, and let's just say Yankee Candle would quickly discontinue it if it were a fragrance. I think about the filth and condition of the stable. I mean this is where animals were living. Really, there was nothing 'pretty' about the whole scenario if you think about it. And the crazy thing is, it didn't have to be like this. When I hear the Messiah is being born, I visualize a symphony playing, lights flashing, a perfectly fluffy cloud coming from the sky, a beautiful silky baby, laying in Pottery Barn's finest linen's with 'The Son of God' monogrammed on the pillow. I mean the whole 'no room in the inn/stable' scenario is just not how any of US would have planned it. But thank goodness, He is not us. Jesus was brought in this world in the most humble way possible by two obedient, simple, loving parents. Wow! So what makes us feel a sense of entitlement and pressure during the Christmas season? Instead, we should count our blessings! The greatest gift has already been given. And it was given in the most simple way possible.
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