Preparations for Christmas

The tree is up, and the packages have been mailed. One party down, only one more to go, and all of this despite the fact that I’ve felt a bit under the weather for the last few days, and finally decided a trip to the dental clinic was in order this morning to deal with some tooth pain. While it’s not as bad as I feared, I do need to have my wisdom teeth removed as soon as I can get to it! Yes, I still have all of them, even though every dentist I see tells me they need to come out. I don’t know why my teeth were bothering them, since they weren’t bothering me, but since they are now I guess it’s time.

I didn’t put up as many decorations this year as I usually do (the reason for this will become apparent soon, but for now I have to be a bit mysterious). The tree and the wreaths are up and about, but other than that I decided to limit the decorating festivities to the nativity scene, and I had to choose it’s place very carefully this year or all of the figures were likely to become casualties well before Epiphany. I can just imagine Shadow carrying little Jesus around in his mouth, and tearing bits of fabric and trims off of the rest. The mannerless one has absolutely no respect!

My mom made this nativity when I was very young, maybe as young as two years old. She started with cones from industrial size thread, and added stocking-covered styrofoam balls for heads. Scraps of fabric became robes and clothing, and bits of trim and jewels were pinned in place to complete the ensembles. I think Baby Jesus is a chunk of salt dough under the swaddling.

Mom gave the nativity to me when I moved out, and I remade their faces in cross stitch, and added hair and a few newer and different fabrics and jewels around 1989. After we moved to Germany, I thought about adding a quilted background for it, and I made a Mariner’s Compass Star of Bethlehem, but I got stuck trying to make the landscape under the star too realistic and never could put something together that I was happy with. Time and experience have resulted in some new creative ideas for finishing that quilt, so it’s good that I still have the UFO creativity pieces 10+ years later!

I just love looking at these pieces and remembering which fabrics and jewels were original and which ones I added later, and seeing how it all works together. When I decided on the only place in the house that I thought was safe from the evil cat, I realized that the quilt that was already hanging there is somewhat star-like in the center and it all goes perfectly together, so all is good and will do until that other quilt gets done. I’ve never seen a nativity that I liked better than this one. Maybe someday one of my girls will add her special touches and make it hers.

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