Mary's Unexpected Journey - from Family Christmas Online^TM

About 35 years ago, my sister gave us newlyweds a nativity set that represented children dressed up as the nativity characters. She got it at Bronners, a big Christmas-themed store in Michigan. Trying to follow our Dad's tradition of adding a new piece every year, she added two angels from another relatively unknown manufacturer. Then when those became unavailable, she added a third angel, a donkey, a camel, and two sheep from other sources. Despite differences in finish, when they were set in and around a wooden stable that our neighbor gave us (not shown), they looked like they belonged together.

Recently Shelia thought it would be nice if each of our three daughters had "the set" they had grown up with. So a friend helped me track down another set identical to the seven figures in our first original set. Shelia also came across two more of the musician angels at a thrift shop. Later, she found a set of white ceramic figurines very similar to our original set, and had the idea that we could paint them to look like the others. I'm good, but not THAT good.

So I went on a quest to find a third set, which eventually I did. A big part of the problem tracking them down was that the original set has no name brand on the bottom, only a little sticker that says "Korea." I discovered several partial sets on eBay labeled as other things, most commonly "Josef," but also as "Heavenly Blessings," an Avon line.

It's not hard to see why some folks confused them with the "Josef" set, a Japanese make - Several of the figures have similar postures and colors, and two of the kings even have the same coif.

In other words, the Korean "designer" basically worked from the Josef set, but removed some of the detail to make them less fragile. I'd feel worse about that, but at least one of the Josef pieces is essentially a Hummel in a long cloak.

By the way, while researching the sources of our original nativity, I came across several other very charming sets with a similar theme - children dressed up as nativity characters. A few are shown below.

Berta Hummel's Holy Family	Goebel's Holy Family	Hallmark's Mary Hamilton Holy Family
Heavenly Blessings Holy Family	Homeco Flight into Egypt	Precious Moments Holy Family

This isn't to say that one set was "better" than the others, only that if you go hunting for this sort of thing, you may have to decide among several appealing sets.

After tracking down and ordering various pieces from our original Korean-made set, I had a complete third set except for two problems: two of the kings in the third set were a bit banged up, and the set was missing the Mary.

One eBay vendor was selling the Mary from the Josef line by herself, but I checked the measurements, and she would have been a bit too tall.

Finally, about ten days before Christmas, I found another partial set on eBay. It was mislabeled as "Josef," but it included a Mary in good condition, and the kings looked to be in pretty good shape too. I ordered it in plenty of time for Christmas. Or so I thought.

"I Think We Took a Wrong Turn!"

Then I watched the "tracking" day by day as Mary worked her way slowly across the country from upstate New York to Springfield, Ohio. It was surprising how long it took. Yes, this was during the worst of the Christmas mailing rush, but usually I get stuff from that distance within two or three days. For one thing, it took our future Mary and her companions an extra day to get out of the first post office they visited. Then, instead of spending a half-day at each stop, they spent a day.

But what really made me nervous was when Mary took a big wrong turn. The following account, care of the U.S. Post Office's tracking site, tells the story.

• At 5:38 PM, December 17, Mary left the post office at Clifton Park, New York.

• At 12:42 AM, December 18, Mary arrived at the Springfield, Massachusetts sorting facility.

• At 4:16 AM, December 18, Mary left the Springfield, Massachusetts facility. So far so good, right?

• At 11:40 PM, December 19, Mary arrived in the Dayton, Ohio Post Office and sorting facility. I was relieved to see that Mary had had reached Dayton, which is only one stop away from Springfield. That was the Friday night before Christmas, which was on a Thursday this year. With any luck, she would reach Springfield in time to come in Monday's mail, and we'd have a chance to sort the nativities out without any of our grown children in the house.

• At 5:41 AM, on Saturday, December 20th, the Dayton sorting facility decided which way Mary would be heading next. This was the Saturday morning before Christmas. Surely Mary would reach Springfield by Sunday night and be at our house by Monday the 22nd.

• At 8:49 AM, December 20, the Dayton post office put Mary on a mail truck for delivery. In Dayton. Unfortunately:

  • We don't live in Dayton, and

  • Because the site is so slow to update, we didn't see that Mary was headed the wrong way until after all the post office customer service lines were shut down.

• At 8:59 AM, December 20, the mail person giving Mary a driving tour of Dayton, Ohio decided that the package was "undeliverable as addressed." Again, we didn't see this status until after the phone lines were shut down for the weekend. I did e-mail the seller, who sent me a copy of the mailing label she had used. No question, it was correct. There was no reason whatsoever for Mary to have gone on that mail truck

• At 9:16 AM, December 20, Mary was designated to be returned to the Dayton Post office. Well, that was better than being left on the wrong porch somewhere. Now maybe she'd be sorted into the right bin and go to Springfield, Ohio, as she should have in the first place.

• Then, at 8:26 PM, still December 20, Mary arrived in Cincinnati. Cincinnati? Mary had got to with 32 miles of my house, and now she was nearly 80 miles away.

  As far as I knew, Mary was heading back to Clifton Park, New York by way of Springfield, Massachusetts, with the message "Undeliverable as Addressed" rubber-stamped over our (very correct) home address.

• At 8:28 PM, still December 20, Mary left Cincinnati for parts unknown. Which is my way of saying the tracking software says where a package has been but not where it is going.

  At this point, Mary seemed to be - in the words of A. A. Milne: "Wandering vaguely, quite of her own accord."*

• Finally, the evening of Sunday, December 21, the tracking software updated once more. To my relief, at 11:02 AM, Mary had finally found her way to the Springfield Ohio Post office.

• At 5:16 PM, Monday the 22nd, Mary finally found her way to our mailbox.

Sorting and Wrapping

We quickly added Mary and the kings who had traveled with her to the "third set," storing the chipped-up kings for backup. Then we sorted the sets. Shelia had decided that all of the pieces from the original set should go to our oldest daughter. That left the two angels she had found and a donkey I had found in a thrift shop to be divided among the other two sets. Needless to say, we'll keep an eye out for other pieces in the future.**

Then we wrapped all three sets in similar-sized boxes in matching paper so we could be sure that the kids would open them all at once.

Keeping Secrets

We had already set up one nativity, with '40s and '50s dimestore figures that I've been accumulating, as a sort of commemoration of the set my father bought for my mother nearly a piece at a time when they were first starting out. The story of that set is partially told in our article "In Search of Baby Jesus."

We also had a nice, new stable courtesy of Shelia's brother-in-law, carpenter Roy Howard. So I was able to "head off" questions from the younger two by saying we decided to set that one up instead this year and we didn't have room for both. That was all true, of course; it just wasn't the whole truth.

But then our oldest came to stay overnight on Christmas Eve, and she noticed the omission before we had a chance to explain things to her. Though she seemed to accept our explanation, it was obvious that she was disappointed not to see the set she grew up with on display. Oh well, it would only be for a few hours.

Christmas Day

The most emotional gift of Christmas: Mom and Dad gave each of us a set of our favorite family nativity. The moment we opened our boxes, we instantly recognized the shapes of the figures wrapped in tissue paper and bubble wrap. I didn't look around, but I don't think I was the only one who started to cry immediately.

The most treasured part of decorating for Christmas as children and as young adults was carefully unwrapping the pieces from their box (marked "Handle with LOVE") and setting up the "big" nativity, then thoughtfully rearranging it during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Other Christmas decorations were and are subject to whimsical mischief, but never this nativity.

We are grateful for the heirlooms, but especially for the reminder of what is important at Christmas: faith and family.

Conclusion

Today, when I remember those prayers, what makes me warm inside isn't memories of the old plaster nativity figures in a hand-built stable, but memories of a family united in devotion, affection, and anticipation. If Shelia and I have passed such memories on to our children, we will have achieved far more than all of the presents in the world ever could.

May God help you create like precious memories for the youngsters in your life this and every Christmas.

- Paul and Shelia Race

* In Milne's poem "Disobedience" the mother of James James Morrisson Morrison is described as "wandering vaguely, quite of her own accord." Click here to return to our story.

*By the way, it turns out that the angels were from a short-lived company called "Creative Art Flowers." At one time they had sold an entire nativity set, with a variety of angels that could be added over time. There were praying baby angels and musician angels.

The musician angels played banjo, flute, violin, and cello. Oddly, the cello player is playing left-handed, something that human cello players never do, even if they're left-handed. As far as I can tell from photos of the CAF angels that I've tracked down on the Internet, both the praying baby angels and the musician angels each came in multiple colors.

Since then, I've discovered that a Malaysian manufacturer eventually "repurposed" the molds for the CAF musician angels and sold them under the name "Lefton Christopher Collection." The only differences to speak of are gold hoops glued to their heads to represent halos, and a tendency to use pastel colors. That said, some were made in colors that should work well with the original CAF set, so this gives us hope for future additions.

The camel, donkey, and sheep that my sister gave us for the original set turned out to be Avon, from their "Heavenly Blessing" collection, so they'll be easy to track down. Click here to return to our story.

Paul Race

www.familychristmasonline.com

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