Teaching the Christmas Story (Christmas Club #5)

For this week's installment of Christmas Club, an exercise in which Sian of From High in the Sky, encourages blog friends to share tales of Christmas past, I offer this layout from 2001 in which it becomes obvious that at least one of my children is just a little unclear on the concept of Christmas:

Las Posadas is a traditional Mexican Christmas celebration, in which members of the community dress up as Mary and Joseph, innkeepers and towns folk to re-enact the events of the very first Christmas Eve.  A procession, led by Mary and Joseph, goes to several pre-selected locations and asks for shelter.  They are repeatedly turned away, until finally they are admitted at the last location (usually the Church or Church hall) and a party is held.  Attendees carry candles and sing songs (in Spanish) pleading for shelter and lamenting the fact that the family has no place to stay.  This layout shows the Posadas celebration we attended with my sister in southern California.

Afterwards we went back to the Church to look at the Nativity.  Like many Churches, baby Jesus is not placed in the scene until Christmas morning, and the Wise Men do not show up until Ephiphany.  Clara was disturbed by the empty cradle; you can see her pointing to it in the lower left hand photo.  When she asked where the baby was, Henry assured her that he would be there on Christmas morning.  Clara frowned and continued to look puzzled, until finally you could see a light bulb go off in her little head.  She smiled, gave a firm nod, and said, "Oh, Santa's bringing him"