Friday, December 21, 2012

Christmas Stories

This is one of our family's favourite Christmas anecdotes.

When Mars was small I bought a sturdy wooden nativity set. I wanted something solid so that he could play with it. When his sister got big enough they started to play with it together. Their favourite character was baby Jesus. 

The Christmas when she was three and he was six we got out the nativity set and put it all together on a small table in front of a window. Baby Jesus didn't stay there for long. Every day I'd find him in a different place somewhere else in the house. He'd be in the dolls' house,  or in with the lego, or stashed in the toy kitchen. That baby Jesus, he got around.

Supernerd's parents and sister were coming over to watch Carols by Candlelight on television on Christmas Eve, so I encouraged the children to help me tidy up by sorting out the nativity set. It was all beautifully arranged with the star stuck on the stable roof with blu-tack by the time our guests arrived.

At some point during the evening the sun was streaming in through that window so Supernerd's Dad reached over to put the blind down. He let the cord slip through his fingers a bit too fast so the blind rushed down and hit the stable at the back of our nativity scene. The stable hit the shepherds, the shepherds hit Mary and Joseph, and the baby Jesus was knocked to the floor. 

Venus, who'd seen the whole thing happen right in front of her, yelled out "Oh, Jesus!" and we laughed until we cried, because it was just so funny to see a tiny little girl inadvertently blaspheming at the top of her voice.

Nativity scene, with dinosaurs

This year, I have new Christmas story to add to our collection. This one comes from a boy in Mars' class at school. I was helping in the classroom this week and the kids were working on an activity they'd started the week before. They had a picture of Santa striding along holding a rope over his shoulder, and they had to colour it, paste it onto a larger piece of paper, draw something on the end of the rope, and then write a story to go with their drawing.

This boy, let's call him Andrew, wasn't sure what to draw. I gave him some suggestions and when I later checked on his progress he had drawn a Minecraft dog. Now, I know a little bit about Minecraft, having watched Supernerd and the kids play it together a few times.

I asked Andrew what his story would be about, but he said he didn't know. I asked him whether the dog had a name. He told me its name was Bob. I asked whether Bob, being a minecraft dog, would do 8-bit poo all over the place. Andrew laughed and said no, but the girl sitting next to him got the giggles big time. I'm not sure whether it was funny because she thought I was being clever, or whether she was just laughing because I said "poo".

When I next checked on Andrew his story was done. It went roughly like this:

Santa has a pet dog. His name is Bob. Bob is a good dog. He kills zombies and creepers and skeletons. So Santa got another dog and those two dogs bred. Now Santa has a herd of zombie-killing dogs. The End.

I don't know about you but I'm so relieved to know that, in the world of Minecraft at least, Christmas is now safe from zombies, creepers, and skeletons thanks to Bob, the 8-bit dog.


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