Reinactment of the Christmas Crib

by Barbara Van Den Hemel
(Omaha, NE, USA)

Christmas is a time of birth and renewal, and in an effort to diminish the commercialism of the feast, we put up our Christmas crib and then talked about the birth of Jesus with our grandchildren.

Once they knew the story (the eight-year old knew it, of course), we dressed them as Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We could have added a lot more, like a little stable and stuffed animals for the cow, donkey and lambs, but this year we were keeping it as simple as we could for the two-year old. We just found some rug yarn and a couple material remnants - blue and beige - at Walmart, and we just swaddled Baby August in one of his blankets.

I know they have their regular t-shirts on but all we needed was one prop apiece to make it a memorable and meaningful event for the three - Chloe, 8, is Mary, Christopher, 2, is Joseph, and August, 7 months, is Baby Jesus.

This is just one of many events that can be reinacted from the Catechism with small children, and they will remember them well.