The spirit of Christmas is unbreakable

Nativity offers chance to touch lives of friends, family, Rita Smith writes.

As we head into the Christmas season, every family has a Christmas story that gets retold year after year. Here’s mine. One Christmas long ago, my brother Pete built me a wooden nativity scene.

I loved it from the moment I saw it and have ever since.

A thoughtful friend, seeing how much I adored it, bought me a set of wooden figurines.

Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the shepherds and angels were rustically hand-carved and very lovely.

Unfortunately, they were also extremely brittle.

I learned this when my cat ran across the roof and tipped the whole thing over.

Two of the shepherds snapped in half.

I was dismayed, but philosophical. I could get by with two less shepherds.

Years later, I stopped home one busy workday to be greeted at the door by my housekeeper Krys and her young daughter Kirsten.

Krys had been part of our family since she was our babysitter, starting when she was 11 years old.

But on this day, Krys met me at the door with four-yearold Kirsten, who had tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Show Rita what you did,” Krys said.

Sobbing and hiccupping, Kirsten held out her shaking hands.

The Joseph figurine was broken into two pieces. She held Joseph’s head in one hand, his torso in the other.

I’ve never seen a little girl so frightened and heartbroken. I still cry thinking about it.

“Oh my God, those crappy nativity pieces!” I exploded. “Who makes nativity pieces no one can touch?”

I immediately turned around and left the house.

Krys had no idea where I was going. She later told me she half-thought she was going to be fired.

I jumped in my van and drove straight to the Christmas store.

“I have got to buy some nativity pieces which are unbreakable,” I told the saleswoman.

“Oh, you need the Fontanini pieces,” she told me, leading me to the back wall of the store — past numerous locked glass display cases of handcarved wooden pieces.

The Fontanini display was incredible.

Mary, Joseph, Jesus, shepherds, angels, kings, oxen, asses, camels, sheep, rams, dogs, all in hard, painted plastic that could be endlessly handled and washed.

I lost my mind (and sense of budgeting) picking out all the figures I wanted.

The nativity, to me, represents every important thing humanity needs: love, hope, optimism, shelter, warmth, respect, caring, work, responsibility, mothers, fathers, family.

I also bought a duplicate Mary, Joseph and Jesus to give to little Kirsten as a gift.

By the time I got to the cash register, I had $400 worth of figurines.

I swallowed hard and presented my credit card. There was no going back now.

I arrived home and enlisted Kirsten to help me set up the new nativity.

“You can play with these all you want,” I assured her. “That is the whole point of a nativity: that’s how you learn what is important.”

Imagine my delight when, a few days later, I asked Krys if I should get my brother to build a nativity for Kirsten.

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” Krys said with a chuckle. “Kirsten emptied out her Barbie house and put Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in it.”

Love, hope, optimism, shelter, warmth, respect, caring, work, responsibility, mothers, fathers, family.

Merry Christmas!

The nativity, to me, represents every important thing humanity needs: love, hope, optimism, shelter, warmth, respect, caring, work, responsibility, mothers, fathers, family.