O Little Town

Walking past my neighbor's seasonally decorated house last night, I noticed that the illuminated nativity scene in the front yard was reduced to the Three Kings of Orient only. I'm pretty certain their lowly-cattle-shed diorama included a full complement of characters last year, so what has happened to the holy family, attendant angels, shepherds and oxen? Moreover, the actual cattle shed itself is missing, and the Three Kings consequently exiled to an unkempt forest of privet hedges and boxwoods, their only guiding star being a nearby street lamp that shines over an illegally parked Honda CRV instead of the birth of baby Jesus.  Apparently, this year's nativity scene is set around December 20th or 21st, when the Three Kings are still traipsing across nowheresville Judea via plastic camel. No room at the Inn or on the lawn either it seems. But such minimalism is not a bad idea, especially if you want some sort of nativity scene display but lack the energy to build the whole fragile shed thing then arrange the finicky little figures and random menagerie around the manger, etcetera. The shed will just collapse by Christmas Eve and the characters all topple over anyway, so why bother?


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