Haunted Nativity Scene

In our family, we have a tradition of not putting the baby Jesus in the manger of the nativity scene until Christmas morning, to acknowledge His birth. Once at a party on Christmas Eve, Jason swiped the baby Jesus from the hostess's nativity set and hid it in the Christmas tree, commenting that you can't put the baby Jesus in his place until it's time. But he forgot about it until Christmas morning, and we had to call her the next morning to wish her a Merry Christmas and tell her where her baby Jesus was hidden. We were never invited to another Christmas party after that.

But we maintain our tradition anyway. We have a very elaborate (albeit inexpensive) set we bought when we were first married from what was then K-Mart. There are lots of buildings and bridges and people and animals. But Casey broke so many of the pieces last year that I decided to get something simpler. There's no reason for our kids to play with the nativity set because they have their own Fisher-Price version to play with. With that in mind, I set up our nativity scene (sans baby Jesus just yet) a couple weeks ago. Here's what it looks like:

The morning after I set it all out, when I came into the front hall, this is what I found:

Thinking it was odd, I opened the doors of the manger to find this:

The parts had all been stacked inside, with the angel on her side and the camel upside down, on the angel's head. I opened the doors and re-configured the scene. And left the room for a few minutes. When I returned, here's the chaos I found:

Looks like a storm blew through, knocking over the palm tree (did they have palm trees in Bethlehem?) It took me all morning before I realized that the Nativity Scene was haunted . . . Casey was just having some fun. I can't keep him away from it, despite his very own Fisher-Price set. But at least he's showing an interest in the reason for Christmas.

Tonight he told us at story time that we give presents at Christmas to help celebrate the Baby Jesus's birthday. And he's really looking forward to putting that little baby figurine into his place in the nativity scene.