Mimi Smartypants! Please dismantle your new email fortress and call off your salivating anti-SPAM dogs that keep chasing my poor emails across Smartypants Grounds and ultimately back to imprisonment in the mail delivery subsystem system.
Or at least stop writing funny things so I don’t have to try and email you about how funny you are only to get it bounced back. Is very frustrating. The only bright side of being reduced to catcalling you through the internet is that for this one shining moment, I get to make Technorati my bitch. Instead of the other way around. But doing so makes me feel like I should be wearing some kind of protective latex covering and perhaps worrying about strange itching for the next few days.
*****
Here’s one more thing I don’t like about the holidays: A few years ago, someone gave us a Nativity Scene to display at Christmas. Apparently, you set up the little shepherds and the wise men and the barn animals and the crib and Mary and Joseph and holy shit, some guy I guess was just walking through and happened upon the birth of Christ.
(I just stick him by the cows and hope I am not making God angry with my general lack of understanding about the basics of Christianity. He’s the Manger Manager perhaps? Alternate Wise Guy? Mary’s Dad: The Lesser Talked About Grandfather of Christ? I’m stumped.)
Anyway. The baby Jesus. My husband informs me that even though you bust out The Nativity for the whole Christmas season, the little carved Baby Jesus does not get to join the rest of the cast until Christmas Morning. Because that is the whole point of Christmas, Anne. The birth of Christ. Not there two weeks ahead of time. Just there on Christmas Morning. Surprising and delighting the children with his sudden appearance! Whee!
But the thing is? Every year I have to stuff the wee baby Jesus into a dark dresser drawer starting around December 1oth. Our tiny Lord, looking up at me with arms outstretched and pleading as I shut the drawer and leave him resting on a Post It notepad for the duration. Also? If I shut the drawer too fast, I hear him take a tumble and rattle to the back with the dust bunnies. Is terrible! Am always turning half an ear for some muffled divine crying.
At least when he’s in the garage wrapped in paper towels for the rest of the year, he has his family with him. And possibly some spiders to snack on.
What’s even worse is that I will spend an hour’s time today wondering if I am going to hell for mocking and abusing the Tiny Wooden Lord. Last year, I was able to let go of this fear by convincing myself that the Nativity might actually be a form of idol worship. Which I think may be a worse sin in the Big Bible Offense Playbook. If you give me a day to talk myself into it, I could probably have a full blown anxiety attack on this subject.
I don’t do well during the holidays is why.
ETA:Â Adventures of Baby J are being compiled on this category link:Â Baby J.Â
Hey, at least you display the nativity scene. I would probably set the cast up in all manner of inappropriate activity and take pictures for my blog.
Every year I swear that I’m going to drive around the town before Christmas and steal all the Baby Jesuses that are out too early. I’m going to label them with a post-it note with the correct address. Then at dawn on Christmas day I’m going to drive around and return them all. That will be my contribution to Christmas.
On one of our Nativity sets, the Baby Jesus is attached to his little manger. And you turn the manger upside down before Christmas, so it’s empty. Then you turn it the other way so you can see him on Christmas.
Is it wrong that I Capitalize Both Words Of Baby Jesus?
If it makes you feel better, my sister and I make it a contest to see what we can put in my mom’s nativity every year.
(BTW, she puts out Baby Jesus from the start)
Right now, we have added a dinosaur, a pez dispenser (in case they need snacks), a spider (cuz you know that place was full of em), and a transformer (for protection).
Ahhh, the joys of the holiday season!
Oh the baby Jesuses in the creches already make me nutso. And then people ask me for my admiration. Which I duly give, in an obligatory way. And I bite back the EDITORIAL. Because nobody likes a red pen comment, even just a verbal one.
But I never considered the whole poor abandoned Baby Jesus angle.
You have opened my eyes.
And caused me to ponder the creepiness/sadness of a bunch of adults standing about staring at an empty cradle.
ACK
I was LOL and now I am ready to weep.
BAH HUMBUG I hate December. Praise the Lord and pass the Prozac.
Julie
Using My Words
OMS Anne…that rocks. I am LOL!
It could ONLY be funnier with a popsicle stick. Or a cracker. Take your pick.
I like the post it note and paperclips.
Julie
Using My Words
You could always shove him in the drawer with the wise men because technically they didn’t show up until after Christmas too. At least he’d have some peeps to chill with.
Yes, you are going to hell.
Ha! Kidding.
My mother seriously makes that nativity scene into an actual stable in Bethlehem. no joke. She brings in moss, and sticks and crap from the yard and puts it all on the mantle. It literally looks like the damn barn, inside.my.parents.house. It always looks so pretty, but really? It’s insane behavior. I picture her taking 3 hours to lay it out all perfectly. She even has the wisemen higher up (like sitting on a shot glass, covered in moss) so it’s all 3 dimensional. Craziness, I tell you. Craziness.
Anne, thanks for the recent comments. And if you are “anonymous” ,I still love your ass. I only wish I could be as honest as you are here. Maybe I need to start my own anonymous blog, so I can be real yo’.
Hi Em,
I read through that drama on your page. It was not me – you might be able
to tell who by your stat counter, depending on which type you have. My IP
address comes out of California, if that helps clear my name :^). But also,
it is not my style to (knowingly) dish out the heavy handed advice. When I
read the anonymous comment on your page, I thought, “whoever that is might
be better served getting their own blog and addressing their own issues re:
honesty.”
I think most people give out the advice they really mean for themselves.
Whoops, including this advice here!
I don’t do the nativity thing, but I always feel bad if I have to chew my communion wafer. It’s supposed to be the body of Christ and He went through so much for us already so I always try to let it soften up on my tongue and just swallow it.
O man. You have me in all kinds of crazy right now. First off, I don’t put up a nativity. Crap, am I going to hell for THAT??? Second, that poor poor lil Baby Jesus in your drawer, do you think he gets hungry in there? Are post-its non toxic? Cause I think poisoning BJ goes against everything Christmas stands for. O God, am I going to hell now for shortening Baby Jesus to BJ and then rolling over in a barrel laugh at the irony of his name?
Yeah, I’m pretty much screwed I think….
Growing up my mother was manic about not putting baby Jesus out until bedtime Christmas Eve. It never made sense to me.
Let us know if you can get through to mimi smartypants. I’ve been trying to ask for a recipe she mentioned in her archives, but it all just comes a-bouncing back.
Omagawd, I wish I’d read this one first so I wasn’t so startled by Baby JC popping out of the advent calendar.
I had no idea about the manger/Christmas thingy. Dang. Births of Saviors are hard.
I’m such a lousy Christian. I always put Baby J in the creche, because I’m afraid I’ll lose him if I don’t. I haven’t even set it up this year. That’s on the to-do list for tomorrow. I’ll try to find some way to make it right this year. I swear.