Holy Hopper

After a recent trip to Costco (which I call "the C word," because every week, without fail, JVL brings home something great, but which we don't need), my sweet husband pulled into the driveway with that familiar excited look on his face. He emerged with a nativity for the kids--which was genuinely awesome. (And so far as we can tell, doesn't have parts you can choke on, unlike the toy one I bought last year. Because really, what's more horrible than your kid choking to death on the angel's harp or the little drummer boy's drum??) We kept it in reserve for an afternoon where a) it was too cold to go outside, b) the kids were bored, c) the kids were unspeakably cranky, d) I needed something to distract them so I could make dinner, or e) all of the above.

Saturday was all of the above. So we broke out the nativity and it was a huge hit. Kelly came over in the evening and Cody was thrilled to show her every detail.

We had such a blast watching and listening as he narrated his scene. He would take everyone out (including "the two Marys," because apparently he couldn't decide which was Mary, and who the other one would be, so Jesus has two Mommies in this scenario) and then pile them in, but it seemed there was some sort of specific order. We noticed that he always started with the palm trees (how awesome is a nativity with palm trees?). When I asked him why the palm trees were growing inside the manger, he looked at me as if I were dim-witted (fair enough) and said, "Well, Mommy, Jesus has to sleep. So we put the trees in front of the windows to block out the light. The trees are the curtains for the manger."

Obviously.

We sat in the soft firelight and watched awhile longer, as the holy men and women and "sweet, sweet animals" were loaded in and then dumped out. After a bit we heard a soft, steady hum--kind of a high whine, but not the toddler kind, more the machine kind--coming from Cody. We looked at him and saw that familiar, faraway look in his eye. And we realized that in his little mind, the manger had become...

...wait for it...

...wait for it...

...a hopper.

UPDATE: It's a good thing we have an Aunt Kelly, because she reminded me about the other scenario that played out--several times: The manger was a cruise ship (pronounced "cruise-a-ship") and the Holy Family was embarking on a different kind of journey. More sail-the-Caribbean than flight-to-Egypt. The angel was the captain, and the trees got to go, too. Presumably so that Jesus would also be able to sleep on board.