This Christmastide: Part II

When I was three I played Mary in our family Nativity. My dad was Joseph. Other family members filled in the rest of the supporting roles. Legend has it that I was very dignified as we journeyed to Bethlehem, very serious as we were turned away from various inns and directed to a stable, very loving as I held my first born son wrapped in swaddling clothes. But that year we used a squeaking ("crying") doll as our most important prop, and when baby Jesus "cried," my serious, loving little self turned him over and spanked him.

I'm not sure that I was ever again cast as Mary on Christmas Eve.

This year's participants in the little family pageant behaved much more appropriately.

And the Nativity enactment remains my favorite Christmas Eve tradition.

Lucy was very happy to play an angel. "Just like on my stocking!!" she whispered to me. (The stocking that used to be mine when I was three and spanking baby Jesus. Now it bears Lucy's name. And a new pink and green border. And it's my favorite.)

But when I was Lucy's age, my favorite was the red Christmas angel that sat atop our Christmas tree. I remember cradling her like a baby doll (did I spank her too? ) and feeling almost reverential about her beauty. She was the most gorgeous thing I had ever seen. Golden hair. Soft red dress. I loved her. But then we lost her. And I spent years and years and years missing her. Every time the decorations came out, I searched to no avail.

Finally, when I was about fifteen, I found her.
"You've got to be kidding," I thought. This spindly, wiry little thing with crazy yellow hair couldn't be my beautiful angel. I laughed out loud when I saw that mom had topped the tree with her again. But guess what three year old girl loved her? It warmed my heart to see Lucy so enamored. But it was not that red Christmas angel that captured my heart this year. It was a different one.