Setting up Bethlehem
Another weekend is upon us and what fantastic plans do I have for my days away from the office? Well, I’ve decided to put my sky diving appointment off until next weekend. You see, tomorrow I am doing something much more exciting: I’m helping my mother put together her nativity village.
Take note, I said village. Not nativity scene. Village.
When I was about 12 or so (which was also when I realized I was different, wonder if there’s any correlation?) my mom decided to have a nativity set up for Christmas. At the time, it was exciting and cute and even kind of cool. We were off to our local Zellers and bought ourselves a few porcelain houses to create a little town around the statues of Jesus and his folks in the barn.
Over the years, our little town went from a population of a few houses to taking up an entire room. There must be over a hundred houses by now. Some of the other mentionables:
-a skating rink
-a religious procession
-a fire station, post office, butcher and everything else under the sun
-an “ocean” scenario complete with animated lighthouse
-a mountain filled with goats or sheep, I forget which
While putting this thing together used to be fun, I stopped looking forward to it about ten years ago. When I moved out, I had hoped that my mom would either stop putting it together or not need my help. Alas, she’s continued the tradition of turning their spare bedroom into a Christmas paradise.
Having been engrained with the good ol’ Catholic guilt my entire upbringing, I feel like I should continue to help my mom out with this particular project. She’s got bad arthritis and the whole set-up requires a lot of bending, lifting and sitting with my legs curled up under me.
To illustrate just how serious a set-up this village is, I will post pictures of it once it’s complete. The neighbours on my parent’s street come to expect it every year and they all stop in to see it. A few of them have suggested we call one of the local news stations to have it filmed. My mom’s entirely too embarassed to be on TV though. (Thank Christ for that because you know who’d end up having to do all the talking!)
Tomorrow will be a very long day for me. While I feel like I’m getting too old for this, I just can’t say no to my mom when she needs help. And even though I am quickly to blame when things go awry, I still let myself be at their beck and call.
Maybe I shouldn’t complain, it may very well be that S has a shittier day then me tomorrow. She’s going to be spending it with P (who I should really give a name too, I think) shopping for glasses and curtains. What’s so wrong with that? P’s the kind of shopper who agonizes over all of the choices and has to look at (or try on) all of the options.
Christmas village hell or shopping hell? Who will make it through the day unscathed?
Stay tuned. Same Bat channel…
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4 Comments
I love Christmas excess. I am glad to see that even in Canada, a mother and her daughter are preparing their own foray into Christmas excess with not just a scene, but a whole village.
Would your mother be adverse if you found small village appropriate figurines and added them to the village? You could (secretly) set up your own parallel “lesbians in Bethlehem” narrative and let us know how the girls are doing in the wait up till the Christ is born.
Just a thought. It’s what I’d do, if it was my mother. And then we’d both be curiously and inexplicably happy with our village people.
Maybe I’ll try and create a little dyke march, try to sneak that in.
I’d rather take a beating than set that up. Love looking at them though.
Once, in Costa Rica, I saw an entire Nativity Scene & village mounted on the roof of a taxi. Took up the whole top! LOL
On top of a taxi?! Now THAT I’d pay to see!