Tag: Nativity

The Christmas Baby

~ Paige Hamilton ~ Leave a comment

When I was growing up, I had many favorite Christmas traditions: baking, decorating and delivering Christmas cookies to some of the elderly members of our church; listening to Chrsitmas music; watching Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life or Bing Crosby in White Christmas (and, for some strange reason, The Sound of Music ) all of which came on the TV as this was before the time of VCRs and DVD players.  Singing Christmas carols at church all through December; pulling decorations out of the box and hearing my mother recount where she had gotten them; caroling around the tiny village with my church; sipping hot chocolate in the glow of the Christmas lights. These were a few of my favorite things.

But there was one special thing about Christmas in my family that seemed to make the holiday extra exciting.  My mother is a Christmas Eve baby.

I was always slightly jealous of my mother’s Christmas Eve birthday. How wonderful it seemed to me to be able to share a birthday with the baby Jesus! The lights, the decorations, the foods, the carols, the parties and gifts  … why all of those wonderful activities and traditions must make a Christmas birthday seem to last forever! And who wouldn’t want to extend their birthday celebration out for as long as possible?

The countdown to my own September birthday began as soon as school started in mid-August. I was prone to making a big deal of the countdown, especially during the last week, while dreaming of all the gifts I would open and the fancy cake my grandmother would make me. The most exciting thing about my birthday is that I would be the center of attention!

But my mother never expected anyone to remember or make a fuss over her birthday. She didn’t seem to care if she only got one gift labeled for both birthday and Christmas among all the wrapped presents under the tree, and seemed to actually prefer to think about what good things she could do for others instead of thinking about how people might pay attention to her. And perhaps most of all, she seemed to insist that her three children put our Christmas focus on the Christmas Child in the manger and the reason for His Holy birth instead of putting even an ounce of importance that it was her birthday too.

I suppose a part of me figured she did those things because she was all grown up and grown ups aren’t supposed to love their own birthdays quite as much as little children do. And yet I don’t think that was the case at all. My mother, it seems, was always gracious about her birthday and not prone to expecting a big to-do over it.

I know this to be true because tucked away in my mother’s wedding album was a letter, written in my grandmother’s beautiful cursive handwriting. The fragile paper yellowed, dated December 24th of the year my mom turned 4 years old, contained my grandmother’s recollections of my mom’s 4th birthday party, just a day or two prior. All the neighborhood children came because Santa was going to make an appearance at the party. When it came my mother’s turn to sit on Santa’s knee, she asked him to bring a doll to a little girl who didn’t have one to play with. My grandmother recorded her as saying, “I already have a lot of dolls and toys.”  

Most Christmases, I pulled out that precious letter and read it to myself, wondering about the little girl who had grown up to be my mother. How could she be so good even when she was so little? Even my grandmother seemed to marvel at her oldest daughter’s generosity.

As a child, I firmly believed that my mother got to share her birthday with Jesus because she was so very lovely and good. I would looked longingly at the old photos of her childhood, thinking how her white-blonde hair, bright blue eyes and sweet smile gave her the appearance of a tiny angel without wings. I wished I could be that lovely, too.

Instead, I felt more like Maria from The Sound of Music, desiring so much to be a good girl but constantly getting sidetracked by my own character flaws and failings.

Christmas only seemed to highlight this problem. After all, Santa Claus brought gifts to good children. The big question every year was would you end up on the naughty or the nice list? I never actually knew anyone on the naughty list. Even the worst kids in school got gifts from Santa! At the same time, deep down I knew that my ability to be good wasn’t very good either. My anxious little heart worried over being good enough all year long, especially at Christmas.

The trouble is none of us are good enough. The standard has been set and we absolutely fail at hitting that mark. The sum of our sins is remarkably high. Like the United States debt marker climbing to ridiculous numbers no one can truly fathom, our individual and collective sin debt soars to insurmountable heights.

Oh, we try to make it right, don’t we? Volunteer for a charity. Give money to the needy. Show up to work on time. Be polite. Do your best. Never give up. Be good. Do better. In the end all the matters is that you do more good things that bad things. That’s how you end up on the nice list … right?

Um … Really? I mean, it sounds good but is it even possible?

I can’t even manage to do more positive actions than negative ones in just one day, much less over my lifetime. Not a day goes by when I don’t say something snarky to my husband or rant at the car ahead of me in the line at the red light while cursing the driver in the depths of my mind. I sigh when my kids ask me for a favor that’s a bit inconvenient for me. I roll my eyes when someone does something I don’t like at work. I gossip. I exaggerate the truth (because I don’t want to call it what it is … a straight up lie). And on top of all that, I’m rather prone to being stingy, ungrateful, and totally self-centered.

Be good?!?

Ha! I know me and I know I am anything but good. The ugly truth is I cannot manage to be good for even half an hour, much less be good enough to eventually gain heaven.

I’m on the naughty list. You are too. Even my sweet little angel momma with her Christmas Eve birthday is on the naughty list. Because none of us is good enough.

That’s the bad news of Christmas.

Don’t worry … there is good Christmas news.

Remember the Christmas story? The angel visits the shepherds in the field and says,

“Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you GOOD NEWS of great joy that will be for all the people … :

Luke 2: 10 CSB

Shepherds, who were not good enough even to be considered upstanding citizens in their day, got the news first. And then, without hesitation, they raced off into he night in search of the baby born to save the world.

They found Him … just as the angels said, lying in the manger, wrapped in strips of cloth. He was the good news of Christmas, for God knew we would never be good enough to be on the nice list. Not on our own anyway. So He gave us Jesus, the baby in the manger, God in the flesh, fresh from heaven, born simply to be good enough for us all.

Perhaps the sweetest part of the story is those unworthy shepherds left the Holy Infant and went back into the night to tell everyone about the things they had seen and heard.

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere …

And what were they telling?

That the best and greatest gift of Christmas is that we don’t have to worry about being good enough anymore for the One who is good enough for us all has been born. His name is Jesus.

Merry Christmas and joy to the world!

Love,

The Tale of Three Nativities

~ Paige Hamilton ~ 2 Comments

Of all the Christmas decorations out there, Nativity scenes are my absolute favorite.

I currently own six different nativity sets, and yet every year when Christmas decorations start to appear in the stores, I have the urge to run out and buy another one or two. Jon doesn’t understand my desire to fill my house with all the beautiful Nativity scenes. I have too many as it is because I don’t have enough space to display all of the ones I own. Yet a part of me wonders if a girl can own too many Christmas Nativity sets.

As I decorated my house for Christmas and displayed my beautiful Nativities, I thought about how my love for Nativity sets started when I was a young girl, as well as some of the beautiful Christmas lessons I’ve learned from setting up Nativity scenes.

These are three of my favorite Nativity stories.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

When I was a little girl, I knew the Christmas season had arrived when my mother pulled out the Nativity set.

She always got it out in early December. Sometimes we wouldn’t decorate a tree until it was almost Christmas, but the Nativity set was put out early in the season to remind us of the real story of Christmas.

My brother and sister and I played for hours with the Nativity. Ours was made from a very study plastic. It was not cheaply made nor did it look cheap, but because it was so sturdy it was also very kid friendly. Nothing could be easily broken on it — at least not until we were all grown and Brooke’s dog got hold of some of the shepherds and maybe a wise man or two.

This one is not exactly like the Nativity set my mother owned, but it’s similar. We had more shepherds, several sheep, a couple of camels, and two angels included in our set. Also, the barn did not have a ladder to the roof and the sides were solid.

Each of us had our own way of playing with the Nativity.

I liked to arrange all the characters so that it covered the entire coffee table. Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus were settled into the wooden barn. The cow and the donkey were either in the creche or nearby. Not too far off to one side were the shepherds and their sheep, while a great distance off to the other side were the wise men with their camels.

Unfortunately, I always had a big dilemma over where to place the angels. There were two of them: one kneeling and one that was standing. I typically put one angel on a little flat section of barn roof, but should it be the kneeling angel or the standing one? Once I made that critical decision, then there was the problem of where to put the other angel. Should it be inside the barn worshipping Jesus or be near the shepherds bringing them news of great joy? This problem drove my Type-A brain crazy every single Christmas of my childhood.

I don’t really recall exactly how my brother Reid played with the Nativity. He probably arranged it so that the shepherds were fighting with the wise men or some other such silly boy nonsense. Or maybe he included extra characters in the scene: Star Wars and G. I. Joe figures guarding the baby or wise men arriving on the scene riding in tiny Matchbox cars. Probably he just spent time heckling me and Brooke over how we set up the Nativity scene and informing us that we did it all wrong.

But Brooke … well, I never will forget how she played with our Nativity set.

She worked hard, crowding all the characters right up into the barn. The pieces were literally crammed inside: shepherds stuffed next to wise men, animals doing handstands in the back corners. It was as if her goal was to get everyone as close to the infant Jesus as possible.

As a child, I never truly appreciated my sister’s way of acting out the Christmas story. I would come along behind her and put a little space between the shepherds and the wise men. However, now that I’m an adult and a parent, I have to admit I’m impressed by my sister’s innate understanding of the real meaning of Christmas.

Lesson 1: Get as close to the babe in the manger as possible.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three years ago, my son Nathan bought me a Nativity set to add to my collection.

It was a pretty glass set, so small and sweet. He found it in a box of Christmas items at the antique store where he worked part-time, and purchased it for my birthday. His boss gave him a pretty good deal on it, and after I opened it I understood why.

Do you see the problem?

This nativity is actually the parts and pieces from several incomplete versions of the same nativity set that have been combined into one very inaccurate nativty. The absurd allotment of characters includes two Marys, three Josephs, and six Wise Men. The shepherds and angels are completely missing altogether.

I have to admit that I laughed the first time I saw it. It is just so crazy!

Every year when I pull it out from the box, I still laugh. And the giggles continue as I put the extra Mary and two of the Josephs on shepherd duty. Usually by the time I collect the Wise Men into a small horde, I am wiping away tears from the absurdity of this mismatched nativity.

And yet, every year I am reminded of a simple but oh-so-important truth as I set up my antique glass nativity, and that is that there is only one baby Jesus. I don’t have that particular piece in duplicates, nor is he missing altogether. And I think that’s really important to note.

Lesson 2: There is only one Savior. His name is Jesus.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I’ve always wanted a fancy Nativity set to display in my yard during the Christmas season.

Hobby Lobby has a beautiful outdoor nativity that costs several hundred dollars. Jon and I priced it a couple of years ago, and it’s nowhere near our price range for outdoor Christmas decor.

I have seen those simple Nativity scenes cut from plywood and painted white. These can usually be purchased for a reasonable price. I’ve also found patterns online to make them yourself. We’ve never bought or made one. Probably the biggest deterrent has been that we don’t have a truck to transport this large decorative piece or the plywood to make it to our house.

One year, Jon bought a blow-up Nativity for our yard. We had foster toddlers at the time, and they loved our Nativity. Sadly, it only lasted about three Christmases before it wouldn’t blow up anymore.

This Christmas, I told Jon that I thought of something we might be able to do for our yard and he was glad to help me make this vision come to life.

Together, we pulled out bits and pieces of wood from our shed and constructed a manger plus a cross. It took us just a couple of hours. I love the rustic appearance. Later, we went to Hobby Lobby, where I bought some straw and an old-looking piece of fabric for the swaddling cloth. All together we spent $6 on Christmas decorations for our yard.

I know it’s not a traditional Nativity, but it’s still really special to me. I’ll always cherish Jon’s enthusiasm for bringing my vision to fruition, as well as the time we spent together working on the project. And I think it will be hard for me to forget us searching through the fabrics to find the perfect one for our swaddling cloth.

But what I love the very most is that the manger is empty. Jesus didn’t stay an infant. He grew up and led a perfectly sinless life. He lived just to die and take the punishment for my sins.

Lesson 3: The manger in Bethlehem means nothing without the Cross of Calvary.

Here’s the best news of all: Jesus isn’t on the cross either.

That’s because He rose from the dead. He lives eternally, and through His death and resurrection offers me eternal life too.

How?

It’s simple. The first step is to admit that I am a sinner, incapable of living life without breaking God’s laws. The punishment for not obeying God is death or eternal separation from Him.

Next I believe that Jesus came to live that perfect life without sin, and willingly took my punishment (death on the cross). However, He rose back to life and overcame death. The tomb is empty.

Finally, I repent or turn from living life my own way and surrender to living life God’s way. I confess Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of my life. And when I do that, God says that though I die an earthly death, I will live with Him forever in Heaven.

The best Christmas present out there is the presence of Jesus in your heart and life.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

Ephesians 2:8

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10:9