yes, unitarians have nativity sets

We are pretty much ready for christmas.
Some loose ends and wrapping still need to be, uh, tied up, but we are just about there.

Youngest has finished his school concerts



how cute does he look?
And he played a fabulous solo with the jazz band.

Middle played with the high school last night. They opened with a rousing and wonderful Sousa March. Rousing as in tear inducing, heart thumping terrific, Sousa March -- conducted by the very temperamental, intense maestro.


I seem not to have captured in this photo, the fact that the band is so huge that the kids barely fit on the stage!

And Oldest has played his coffee house gig.


And as the median age at the coffee house was 18, I did not attend. But Middle reports that it went well.

I've gotten the last of the decorations up.




And thought I would have a word with you regarding the nativity set.
Everyone is blogging about their nativity set right now -- or maybe I've been caught up in a christian blogring...
anyway, I thought I would discuss our set.
Because it is definitely discussable.



It is from the home of my maternal grandmother, and somewhere I have the part that enables one to put a blue nightlight bulb up where the star is.
The manger has gotten a little wobbly, but that is probably because it is cardboard.
The figures are chalk, and chipping, though one of the sheep is flocked.
The Mary and Joseph admiring the baby are original, but some other figures wandered in from who knows where. The camel and king with the gold turban are newer, but still from the 1960's. There were three or four Josephs. A couple of them have been buried, upside-down to ensure the sale of one or another of my parent's homes.
What?
You never heard of burying the figure of Joseph upside-down in your garden so that your house will sell?
What I like best about the set is baby Jesus.



He's a little chipped, and a little dirty. A lot of children have played with him over the years.
And his little swaddling cloth is made of moleskin, because that's what my grandmother had on hand when his original cloth went missing. My aunts and uncles had a good laugh over that...baby Jesus wearing foot padding.
As I have read, on other blogs, about children playing with nativity set I have remembered how I loved to play with this one -- and how my boys have played with it each year when I take it out.
My grown brothers enjoy seeing it each year too, when they come here for breakfast on christmas morning...and one year Darth Vader appeared at the foot of the manger with the kings - I'm pretty sure B was responsible for that.

I feel like christmas is crashing down on us -- but in the back of my mind is christmas breakfast
which I am so looking forward to.
I just need to get us to there.