Nativities

NATIVITY

My parents named my mom’s youngest brother (eleven years her junior) as my godfather because they thought he was going to be a Christian. In photos of my baptism, I see him grinning next to his then-girlfriend, whose name no one can remember now. When I was in middle school, he brought a nativity scene to our family Christmas for the annual white elephant exchange. I wondered where he’d gotten it, but didn’t question that he was willing to part with it. Its new owner began to unpackage the characters. The wise men, Jesus, Mary, and the animals were set out on the living room floor, but Joseph was not in the box. “Looks like Jesus had a deadbeat dad,” someone said as Mary silently prayed over our fatherless savior.

NATIVITY II

We use place cards at Nana’s house for the Christmas Eve meal. Each card has a name written in red and a felt character from the nativity scene glued on the left side, which mom and I made together when I was only a few years old. Mom’s card goes at the seat next to the window because she always gets too warm in her mother-in-law’s “overheated” house as she drinks her one glass of wine per year to “take the edge off.” On her card is the donkey. I sit next to her, so that after I politely serve myself some salad, I can discreetly heap it onto her plate. On my card is the baby, Jesus Christ. Behold, the child of an ass.

NATIVITY III

Mom chastises the cat, yelling, “Get down from there!” as it steps craftily around her own mom’s antique nativity set on the buffet table. Later, we find the hunted: a fallen angel and her broken wing.