Me, Too

Perhaps my favorite addition to my Christmas decor this year is the tin nativity I picked up during our Mexican mission trip this summer. I love it for so many reasons.

For one thing, it lives in its own little box, so there's no wrapping of individual lambs for storage and trying to figure out where the Baby Jesus may have disappeared to. It's easy to set up--just open, pop up the figures, and (as we said in junior high orchestra) viola.

Also, Joseph seems to be feeling the pressure of step-fathering the Divine because his forehead has receded thiiiiiis close to ear level. That doesn't bother me at all--I appreciate men who don't spend all their energy maintaining hairlines.

But my favorite part of this nativity lives in the menagerie that fills the foreground. Do you see what I see?

Yes! It's an elephant! And not just any elephant, this elephant practically has "Property of Barnum and Bailey" stamped on its trunk. See the circus trappings, the I've-got-my-foot-on-a-giant-beach-ball posture?

Please don't tell me that elephants were common forms of transportation for Wise Men From the East, or that all the shepherds had elephants back in those days. I don't want to be confused by facts.

What I want to believe is that this elephant recognized what was happening, and thought "Oh, this is so much better than the circus I live in. I have to go meet this Baby."

Because in my heart, that's what I believe, too.