A Christmas Story

in the winter of 1975 when i was just a wee 6 month old baby, the story goes that my father was in ace hardware and found this nativity scene. my parents were dirt poor but it was a steal and they didn't have one so he brought it home. for years it sat on the mantle above the fireplace in our childhood home. a few years back my parents went through some of their extra decorations and i inherited the nativity scene since it was bought in the year of my birth. a couple years later i pulled it out, and displayed it proudly. it doesn't have quite all of the bible characters, but it has the important ones. mary, joseph, baby jesus and the pied piper. [record scratch] WhAt ThE hEcK iS tHe PiEd PiPeR dOiNg In ThE mAnGeR sCeNe?!?! this makes no sense. in all the years this thing was on the mantle not a single one of us 4 kids questions the pied piper behind jesus, who seems to be worshiping said piper.

in news that makes a little more sense, today tatum was inducted into the family christmas stocking tradition. when we were first married and paul was in school i had no money for stockings. i guess dirt poor runs in the family when it comes to early years of marriage. i did, however, have this great fabric left over from when i made our futon cover. the green one is paul's, the red one is mine, so tatum's is red since she's a girl too. she has different trim, and hers is a bit shorter. she loves it. ok, so she doesn't quite understand yet, but she will. here she is posing next to it in the sweater she got from uncle wesley for christmas this year.