Nativity scenes set the tone of Christmas. There are placid olive-wood ones, arranged in hushed stillness amid pine sprigs and juniper. There are bejeweled rainbow ones, frozen on hills of cotton batting and glinting merrily in the candlelight. There are illuminated plastic figures, the size of small children, that pop up in every suburban neighborhood—cookie-cutter crèches decorating cookie-cutter houses. I’ve even seen the sort that blink on and off—an egregiously unabashed way of flashing the joy of the season. There are clay crèches and crocheted crèches; crystal and cornhusk; big and little; bright and bland; modest and fantastic.
My family has at least as many nativity scenes as we have personalities. But one of my favorites has long been the doll-house crèche. It’s not a Victorian relic or a dainty and detailed plaything. The little people wear plastic snap-on garb and printed smiles. But the child’s imagination, free from practicality and preconceptions, can bring all that to life. Perfect for long hours of play while mom decorates the house and cooks the Christmas roast.
In those days a decree went out . . . But there’s a problem: Scripture provides a rather sparse script. Luke devotes less than half a chapter to that first Christmas, Matthew only narrates the adoration of the magi (omitting exciting details like their names or nationalities), Mark fast-forwards to the adult life of Christ, and John’s prologue, magnificent as it is, does not lend himself to doll-house reenactment: The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. But anyone who listens to a child arranging the shepherds and kings—choirs of angels suspended from the bookshelf by scotch-tape and dental floss, and a menagerie of animals grazing on the carpet—realizes how much he’s missed, and how rich is the child’s sight: Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and the prudent and revealed them to my little ones.
Of course, the three wisemen did not worship alongside the shepherds. For that matter, we don’t really know that there were three, despite the fifth-century decree of Leo the Great and the artistic witness of almost every Adoration of the Magi before and since. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were their gifts, but who is to say that the three richly-clad bodies—brought from Persia to Milan by St. Helena and then carried in the twelfth century to Cologne—had anything to do with the wisemen of old? The bodies are clad in damask and silk, woven in the East about 2000 years ago, but what of that? Science and history, or rather the science of history, falls silent.
And what of the requisite ox and ass, humbly framing the crib? The ox knows its master, writes the prophet Isaiah, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Unfortunately, the gospels forget to mention these lowing and braying onlookers. Or—maybe—they weren’t there. We simply don’t know about the ox and the ass, the camels and sheep, Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar, the astronomical details of the star, or even the little drummer boy. And we don’t need to know. The Christmas story is about the coming of Christ; it is about the Son of God, dwelling in our midst, in our hearts, and in our sight.
And yet, if Christmas celebrates the Word made flesh, there is something fitting about fleshing out the gospel account, so to speak—about bringing the biblical word to life. Children know how to wonder and dream and tell stories. They do it in the corner behind the Christmas tree, where the Santa Claus ornament joins the shepherd dolls in adoration before the Christ-Child, and the wooden Christmas mouse peeps wide-eyed from the toy stable. They worry that the mouse has nothing to bring the babe, that there’s not enough straw in the manger, that swaddling clothes look chilly for a winter’s night—and no one needs to explain that we don’t really know what day or season it all came to pass, and that there is certainly no mouse in Scripture. Little hands nudge the ox and ass close to the manger, so that the animals can warm the baby with their soft breath. But, their elders wink and nod, of course it’s only make-believe.
In a sense, though, the child’s spiritual imagination is also that of the poet and the artist and the mystic. The tradition of nativity scenes was popularized by St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenth century. It was 1223, to be precise, when the rough-clad friar assisted at a torchlight Mass in Greccio, Italy—with a manger for an altar, and an ox and ass attending. Francis describes the dream-vision that was his inspiration: He stood before the manger and lifted up the Christ-Child, who woke in his arms and smiled. It was this living presence, intimate and profound, that he wanted to share with his people.
The custom of the crèche—living at first, and sculpted soon after—spread throughout Italy, up into Poland, over into France. In the Provence region, especially, the practice of making nativity figures engrained itself deeply into the local culture. Santons, they are called, little saints. And as anyone who has seen a Santon crèche knows well, the figures are not just part of the culture: Culture is part of the figures. There are the usual players, for sure, but also the dogs and chickens, horses and doves. There’s the rooster who helps the angel Boufarèu (“Big-cheeks”) blow his trumpet to awaken the town, and there’s the washerwoman, bringing fresh linens for the mother and child. There’s the gypsy woman with her tambourine, come to play for the babe, and her husband with his performing bear.
There’s the shepherd Gabriel, whose dog has just died and who’s afraid to approach the manger with tears still in his eyes. Miraculously, the animal comes back to life, and he offers it as his gift. “No,” the blessed Mother responds with maternal care; “you keep the dog; you need it to guard your sheep.” Each figure has a story, each story is personal
Apocryphal excess? Distracting clutter? Maybe. Or maybe not—Nativity scenes set the tone of Christmas, and here the whole town takes part. The animals and the outcasts, the young and the old: Each brings the little he has to offer, the work of his hands, his daily life, his piddly worries and cares and pursuits and pastimes. And as the Christ-Child smiled at the simple friar of Assisi, he smiles at each of them: I reveal these things to my little ones.
Poets and artists and mystics glimpse through the child’s eyes. Take, for instance, the ox and the ass. Though absent from the gospels, some of the earliest Christian carvings, catacomb-frescos, and manuscripts depict the humble creatures gazing with mute love on their infant master. Origen, in the third century, first mentioned the ox and ass in his commentary on Luke, and Ambrose and other Church Fathers followed suit. The fifth-century Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew said that “the ox and ass, with him between them, worshipped unceasingly.” And St. Bonaventure—with the scholar’s intellect and child’s imagination—described the scene in loving detail: The ox and ass, with bended knees, and with their heads placed over the manger, breathed upon him, as if they were gifted with reason, and knew that their warm breath would be of service to an infant so slightly protected from the severity of the season.
The ox knows its master, and the ass its master’s crib. The ox and the ass appear and reappear in early nativity art: a manuscript page, a painted panel, a sarcophagus carving. Curiously, they are often paired opposite the magi bearing fine gifts and wearing fancy robes: the mute and the mighty, the lowly and the learned. The whole span of creation bows down in wonder. It’s a homely scene, to be sure, and the drab russet ox and drabber grey donkey always seem to clash with the gilded angel behind, and gilded wisemen beside, and gilded star overhead. Even the glitteriest crèches have a hard time dressing up the twin beasts, and perhaps that’s why they take the place of honor—one at the Child’s right hand, the other at his left. The least of these shall be the first.
Israel does not know, my people do not understand, Isaiah tells us, and how right he is. But the nativity scene, with all its quotidian clutter, imaginative additions, and tender detail, reminds us what we have forgotten. The Christmas story is about the coming of Christ—the Son of God entering our minds and hearts and lives. We see Him in seeing his little ones: the gift of the least of these.
