Sian from High in the Sky has invited us to share a Christmas story in the few weeks before Christmas, here is mine for this week.
Every year this little Christmas Nativity Scene brings treasured memories for me and laughter for my son.
The nativity scene belonged to my mother and was put out every Christmas throughout our childhood. You will see that the baby Jesus is wrapped in ‘swaddling clothes’ It is a piece of cloth my mother wrapped him in many years ago.
My younger brother insisted that the baby lay in his manger every day during advent whereas my very traditional Irish mother forbid it! The child wasn’t born until Christmas morning and so the manger was to be empty until then.
So, every day the baby was put in the manger by Gerard and every day he was taken out of the manger by mother, first he was in and then he was out, and so it continued all through advent for many years until he got so bashed that his arm fell off!!
My poor mother was heart broken and wrapped him up as you see him here.
When mum died the little crib came to me.
The story of the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes gets more outrageous with every telling and now that my son tells our visitors the story I suspect that by the end of the evening the baby has no limbs at all!
Merry Christmas Gerard…Miriam x
Great story. So what do you do? In or out?
I’m with my mother on this, definitely out, xx
Miriam, I have tears in my eyes. This is our family crib too!! I will be sending my sister here to look at the photo 🙂 It has always been one of my favourite parts of Christmas, it is still kept in its original straw packed box and I hope that some day it will come to live with us for many more Christmasses. Thank you so much for sharing this today and for bringing us that little bit closer x
I love your story of your crib. We too have a crib – I never had one as a child, but my husband did and when we got married we bought a set for our first Christmas and it has come out every year since – it will be its 23rd birthday this year! I have to admit though that Jesus is in there from the start!
What a lovely story and thanks also for the link to High in the Sky – I love the blog!
Brilliant story!!! I have a manger story, I’ll share it next week….! I find one of the characters has an offensive face !!! 😉
Hi Miriam ~ Thank you for the sweet comment you left on my blog. This Christmas Club activity is so fun, and I love your fun story you have posted. :o)
Oh this is excellent Miriam! I can just imagine the backwards and forwards between your Mum and brother!
What a sweet story, I have images of your brother and mother rushing backwards and forwards for days! Thanks for sharing 🙂