How a Manger Scene Saved Christmas

by Lucie B. Amundsen

Like most kids growing up in the ‘70s, I loved the holidays. I spent every evening after Thanksgiving lying under the artificial tree basking under the giant multicolored bulbs. (You remember, the good kind…the ones that got really hot.) Tucked under there watching TV, I had the perfect view of the season’s purveyors: the Norelco Santa, Isotoner gloves and Asti Spumante sparkling wine. Just hearing a few bars of the Peanuts Christmas special can bring me back to that snug spot on the shag.

Of course, fussy preparations ensued outside of my faux wooded hidey place, but as a kid, I was oblivious to it all. In short, Christmas was really great right up until I realized this fact: one haggard mother powers the whole experience. And now I am that mother.

So when I smell the first wood fire of autumn, there’s a small wave of anxiety mixed into that fragrance. I start thinking about bribing my son to smile for the family portrait, creating the annual photobook, and dragging out the many, large bins of decorations – and that’s not even getting into the cards, crafts, entertaining or “some assembly required” toys. I’m overwhelmed and I haven’t even seen a snowflake.

Certainly, I could cut back…but on what? Grandparents are addicted to my time-sucking photo gifts like glassy-eyed junkies, and it’s not like I can easily explain to the children that we’re not going to decorate because “mother is beleaguered.” What’s left on the chopping block is the one ritual I’m passionate about — Christmas correspondence.

I handwrite an actual letter to my far away friends and family on the back of our pre-printed annual newsletter. Before you groan, let me tell you this newsletter is a beloved tribute to self-effacement. It’s so far afield from those braggart-written lists of accomplishments and acquisitions that ours actually makes folks feel better about their circumstances. In that manner it’s a public service and I couldn’t bear to cut that out.

Though I fear all the self-imposed holiday tasks stretched out before me, there is a reason why every major religion has a grand fete this time of year. It distracts us from the sun setting at four in the afternoon. All that hustle and bustle and hall decking keeps us from facing the bleak head on. Let’s be real; it’s like a Russian novel out there.

Last winter was our first in Duluth. And despite all I had to do, the dark was closing in. It was difficult celebrating away from family and old friends, and only made worse by our ambiguous circumstances. We’re renting here with an unsold home in the Cities, and it’s hard to create traditions when Santa may be climbing down an entirely different chimney next year.

To make it even stranger, we’re not renting a traditional home or even an apartment, but a church rectory. It’s an unusual arrangement with a few quirks, but it has treated us very well. But still, our first year there I was undeniably homesick and just couldn’t get my Christmas on. That is, until the storage shed door was swung open and we discovered the church’s full-sized plastic nativity scene.

Putting it on the front lawn was no small task. At one time there was some fear that the Holy Family might get stolen, or whipped away on a Lake Superior gale, so enthusiastic parishioners filled the hollow, plastic bodies with concrete. My out-of-breath husband came in from lending a hand, “Mary (pant) is (pant) one heavy mother,” he managed. Well…yeah, she’s been through a lot. I’ve read the book.

And like Mary, it’s fair to say we’d been through a lot, too. But there was something so completely lovely about watching my children mingling with the synthetic cast and crew of the Christmas pageant. Something in me gave and it got me laughing. I don’t mean chuckle, I’m talking a full joyful, belly laugh the likes I hadn’t experienced in a long while. And there it was, Christmas time had found me.

A friend suggested that we include the crèche in our annual photo. No tired portrait in front of a Balsam Fir for us. So with gentle snow falling, we found places within the bright and busy scene and beamed without hesitation. A new friend Skip, a Jew, snapped the picture, and the swirling oddness of it all just felt right. It’s one of my favorite shots.

Winter is so much about survival, whether it’s the harsh weather or society’s High Holiday expectations. But we all do what we have to do to get through. For me, that means seeking out the humor in the dark months where I can. Then, when I’m not as strong, there’s always the Charlie Brown Christmas CD and a warm retreat back in time when holidays were just an easy recline under the twinkling tree.