Our Nativity Tradition

My family growing up always had (and still has) the most fantastic Christmas traditions. A few of them revolve around the nativity.

My dad was raised Catholic in Venezuela. Though poor, he would often receive a new figure to add to his nativity for Christmas. He has collected a nice set, and true to native tradition, he builds a very captivating nativity. He drapes finger painted butcher paper over rocks to make hills and caves. He winds old-school Christmas lights throughout the scene, exchanging colors here and there so he can have a blue light in the cave or a red light to put under a pile of sticks to look like a fire, perfect for one of his figures to warm himself. He makes silvery rivers out of tinsel and places little ducks on a mirror to make a pond. He scatters his inch-tall sheep around the landscape and adds a bright star to the sky. He makes a long sand path for the wise men, which the children get to move closer to the manger each day after Christmas.

After everything is set in place, one figure is missing. The angels, the shephards, Mary, Joseph, the donkey, the country peasants are all there. But the manger is empty. It stays empty until Christmas Eve. And somehow, as we are finishing dinner that night, Baby Jesus magically appears in his manger, signaling to us that we can now begin opening presents.

Before baby Jesus arrives in his place, all the mini statues are still poised to look into the unoccupied manger, where he will be. The figure of Mary bends over the hay in motherly adoration, Joseph leans in on his shephard's staff, the Wise Men hunch over to have a closer look. Even the ceramic animals, all figures direct your gaze to a focal point that is not there. And so when the figure of Baby Jesus is placed in the manger, nothing else changes, his mother and father and the worshiping shepherds already are bent over him. I started to think about it this year, and how the figurines' unrequited gaze before Christmas Eve seemed right, natural. And I think it is because it fits with history. For thousands of years before Christ, prophets looked forward to the day a Savior would come. In the weeks before his coming, believers in the Book of Mormon anticipated the sign of his birth knowing their mortal lives depended on his coming, as well as their eternal life. And now that Christ has come, we continue with our focus, worshiping him as the Son of God and our Savior. And so we share in common with our ancestors before Christ that same adoring posture that we work to maintain now, after Christ's birth.