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