[GeorgiaMa'am]

On cold, clear December nights like tonight, when I lived at home with my parents, we would all get in the car and drive slowly up and down our road. We were looking at the nativity scene that my dad put up every year, Thanksgiving Day until New Year's. It was handmade, life-sized, from a pattern that my parents ordered from the Sears Roebuck catalog. When they first were married, they had spent countless hours cutting the wise men, Mary and Joseph, camels and oxen and sheep from plywood, which they then painted by hand. There was a stable with an angel that hung out over the roof, and a crib for baby Jesus inside. Every year, my dad would cut down pine saplings to nail up behind the stable, so it looked like it was part of the woods, and over all, there was a lighted star with 8 points.

We loved driving up and down the road to look at it. It was even better when it rained; there were blue floodlights that shone on it every night, and the rain made it all look misty and magical. On nights when we didn't drive up and down the road, my sister and I would walk outside and look at it from under the pine trees. We would usually rearrange the blanket that was in baby Jesus' crib, making sure it was just right. When we were very young, we sometimes left one of our baby dolls in the crib to play the part, even though it couldn't be seen inside the crib from the road. It didn't matter; we knew it was there.

It left a sense of magic and wonder with me that I have never forgotten. I think of it often at this time of year. I worry that the condition of the pieces are deteriorating, as they reside in my sister's attic, winter after summer after winter. My brother-in-law put it up one year, to please my sister and me, but every year thereafter he would complain about how much work it was to build: post holes that had to be dug, wiring that had to be run for a mile from their house to the hill on the highway, the construction of the stable. It used to take my dad an entire day of hard work to put it all together, and another entire day to take it down, clean it and put it away. Needless to say, it was not magical for my brother-in-law, even though he had seen it in the blue-tinged moonlight on the hill outside our house for many years.

I lost my dad this year. I miss seeing the wonderful nativity scene, but mostly I miss my dad's delight in it. I miss helping him put it up, taking him glasses of iced tea while he was working, helping him paint the pieces in summers when they needed repair. I miss sitting behind him in the back seat of the car as we drove up and down the road, everyone remarking how beautiful it was. I miss seeing the pride and joy in his eyes when he looked at it, and when strangers and neighbors stopped by our house each year just to tell us how much they enjoyed it, how beautiful it was. I miss seeing my dad's happiness, and I think of him every time I think of the nativity scene. That was the real magic of Christmas.