AWAY IN A MANGER

December 6, 2019

I had lunch with my friends from Women's Health today. So nice we've all reconnected and it is so nice spending time with them again.

After lunch, we went to a place called Davis Home Trends.  Not sure exactly what kind of store it is for most of the year, but I had to wonder what they will be doing on December 26th, because the whole store, except for several hot tubs on display, was Christmas stuff. Cool stuff that I hadn't seen before, but really nice.  The whole store. 

One of my favorite sections was the "manger" section. All sorts of mangers, from teeny carved figures to larger full scale mangers with the holy family and all the visitors.

The woman in the store told me she had gone into a little shop in Germany and found these and ordered them to bring back to sell in her store.  Apparently they are made out of the ends cut off of round poles, hollowed out, with the holy family inside.  Very cute.

I got to thinking about what might have been my favorite manger.  It was at the home of friends of our kids, who had younger siblings and the manger was filled with toys.  Lego characters, etc., all arranged as you would see in a regular church manger.  Just so cute.

My father made a manger to go under our Christmas tree when I was a kid.  We had a village that went around the tree, each with a tree light in it and the manger had a hole in the back so it, too, could have a light inside.

That manger was under our tree throughout my childhood and when I had my own place, I took it and it has been somewhere in our Christmas stuff ever since.  The angel on top is holding a sign which says "Gloria in excelsis," and at some point Jeri decided that must mean that her name is "Gloria," so we have always called her Gloria.

I do notice, though, that at one point I must have had another manger set because the shepherds and wise men are definitely not in the same scale as the main figures in the manger itself.

One year Jeri made her own manger scene, which Ned found the other day and set up in the kitchen.

Somehow no matter how non-religious our Christmases are, we always have a visible reminder that the holiday isn't about gift giving and cookie baking, but that there is a more serious meaning to it as well.

Takes me back to my days in Berkeley, when I loved to go to the Newman hall chapel and see the altar all decorated.

That was always very emotional for me.  So lovely.... and now it's parking lot.  Sigh.