Kresh Crash

I tell ya, you can't find a decent Nativity scene for under a hundred dollars.

I've been scouring the local retailers with Isabel trying to find a scene that she likes -- to no avail. (Apparently, the overpriced Fontanini sets are out...I don't like how they have some kind of guild monopoly on Christmas.)

But it has given us a lot of fodder for holiday anecdotes. For instance, Isabel finally saw a set that she thought was reasonably untacky at Wal*Mart...There is something surpremely ironic in buying a nativity scene painted by non-Christian Asian slave labor, but what can you do with the economy the way it is?
Anyway, Isabel picks it up and asks me what I think, to which I respond: "It's great if you like your shepherds decapitated."
Yep. There off to the side of the set was the most frightening of all of baby Jesus' visitors...the dreaded HEADLESS SHEPHERD who prowls about the fields and fens every Christmas Eve looking for "lost sheep."
There was another version of the same set...but when we picked it up, we noticed that the baby Jesus was conspicuously absent. Instead of lying peacefully in his food trough, he had somehow broken free from his moorings and was now wedged between a shepherd (with head) and one of the rafters of the stable. I wish I could afford to e-mail myself pictures from my camera, because the effect of baby Jesus trapped while trying to fly away from the manger had me literally on the floor.

I mean, can you blame him for wanting to try to fly back to heaven?  I guess that supports the theory that Jesus had full knowledge of his mission from birth...

We did encounter one more holy family in a Hallmark store that didn't consist of over-stylized cartoon characters, wistful children, cross-eyed Josephs, or utterly tacky paint jobs ...unfortunately...well...it was an "ethnic" holy family. I suppose there are few things more awkward than being white people buying a black holy family, except, of course, for trying to explain why you didn't buy the black holy family without sounding like a yuletide racist.

At this point, I think we're about ready to glue googly-eyes to popsticle sticks and arrange them in a shoebox diorama. (No, I will not use my action figures to create a Christmas scene. That's just weird, man.)

Comments

[Therese]

Try the Shrine gift shop.

[PeterTerp]

We tried that last year and to no avail. Personally, I think that gift shop should be removed to a building apart from the Shrine...not so much because its commerce offends me as its tackiness. Once, when Isabel wanted an Infant of Prague statue, we ended up settling on a Infant of Prague holy card simply because all of the statues were so horrifying.

[Al T]

"Find the tackiest art" is my favorite game when going into religious book stores.

It does seem that when people go shopping for religiously inspired art, their art-senses go out the window.

[Thomas]

Did you hear the one about St. Joseph and the Infant of Prague? "I don't care what your mother says - you are NOT going out dressed like that!"

Putting weird non-historical people in your nativity scene is very Italian, I understand. Just ask Pius.

[PeterTerp]

Oh, I have non-historical people set up in a Christmas scene...just not a Nativity scene. CVS had a sale on miniature ornaments last year, so there is something of an office Christmas party going on my desk right now...very festive and seasonal, just not a kresh.

[Therese]

Maybe you could find a good Nativity scene if you looked for a creche instead of a kresh.

[PeterTerp]

"Maybe you could find a good Nativity scene if you looked for a creche instead of a kresh."

Okay, Strong Bad...I'll keep that in mind the next time we go shopping.

You know, in Shakespeare's time, there was no such thing as standardized spelling. You pretty much just spelled things phonetically.

[Therese]

"You know, in Shakespeare's time, there was no such thing as standardized spelling. You pretty much just spelled things phonetically."

Is that an excuse you accept from your students when they turn in their papers?

[Thomas]

And here I thought this whole time he was spelling it that way on purpose to be funny.

[PeterTerp]

Okay, everyone on the blog with a PhD in English raise their hand...

That's what I thought.