Advent part 2 - Getting to know the story of his birth.

So I would feel confident to say pretty much everyone knows the bare bones of how Jesus Christ was born. Bare minimum facts: he was born of a virgin, he was born in a manger surrounded by animals, three dudes came to visit, and there was this giant star and sheep and stuff.

Very inspirational.

Obviously, I felt it was pretty darn important to actually get to know in intimate details the story of His birth, and add something physical to further push that knowledge into reality, into my life so that I could see and ponder His mysteries, and be reminded with just a glance of the immensity of the birth of my Savior.

I had talked last year of making my own nativity set of clay, and although I had started making it, I felt my sculpting talents were severely lacking, and I dropped that project (although I fully intend to make it happen someday).Since that wasn`t happening, I wasn`t really sure what I was going to do until Jeff answered it for me. He found a beautiful small nativity set made of white porcelain... prefect for hand painting! Its got the cutest little details, and best of all, it only cost 1$! MAD! Unless its a bad thing not to spend alot of money on religious statues? In that case, I will never get anything up in my house but handmade everything!

My plan is to paint each of these, taking my time and truly making them as beautiful as I can. I'm going to post about each person and thing that I paint, and really explore who they are, what role they have within the story of the Birth, to be able to understand and absorb as much as I can.

I see myself creating a tradition that I will share with my children, where baby Jesus only appears in the manger after we come home from Christmas mass, and where the three wise men move slowly towards the manger, moving a space each day until they finally reach their goal, just about the same time Jesus makes his anticipated arrival.  I see myself connecting this little manger to a hundred bedtime stories, a hundred little activities, a hundred readings, a hundred things that will bring my family closer to Him.

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus

Melchior, Balthazar, Gaspar

the manger and a sheep (baaah)

Now what I want to know, is after I am finished, can I get my set blessed? Or is that just silly?