My Christmas Rant

After 8 or 9 years it hit me like a ton of bricks that I got gypped on a purchase Sherri and I made at Kirkland’s. We found a beautiful Nativity for a little over $25. It looks really good on the table in the hall entrance to our house. This week I noticed for the first time in all these years that we were bamboozled. I don’t know how we missed seeing the grave error in our nativity setting. Here is how I discovered that error.

A few members of our choir are going to a nursing home in Apex NC next week. We are going to sing some songs for 19 ladies who are Alzheimer’s patients. We have already been there once, and we had a great time meeting these ladies. One of them is very funny. She must think she is some kind of espionage agent. She sneaks around going into the other ladies rooms taking things. Then she very quietly walks up to men who are guests and gives them what she has taken. She gives us orders as to what she wants us to do with the item she has taken. Her directions seem very urgent. But that has nothing to do with my rant.

I have been asked to give a devotion. I thought that I would briefly tell the story of Jesus' birth using my nativity setting. I intend to show the shepherds out in the field, the angel appearing to them with the news of the Messiah being born in Bethlehem, the manger scene with some animals, and the wise men with their gifts although they were not part of the nativity. I wanted to kind of organize the way I would do this with the characters from our nativity.

When I went to get what I think is the most important sporting nativity character I realized that my scene did not have one single shepherd. How can there be a manger scene without some shepherds? I had three wise men, a little lamb on a shepherd boy’s  back and one stinking camel. Can you believe that. Not one shepherd in the manger setting. Everybody knows the shepherds were there that blessed night. The wise men didn’t show up for two years. They shouldn’t even be in the manger scene. They were late. Of course they did have a long way to travel, but two years late! Give me a break!

Now I am going to have to find some shepherds. I am so upset about this that I may not even include the wise men even though they do look pretty flashy. I also realize that I’m going to have to watch the little lady who thinks she is a spy. She’ll probably try to steal my nativity.

I wonder if it is too late to get my money back?