Come Back Baby Jesus

I know that I have a strange title tonight, but bear with me. A few years ago, my nephew James and his wife Andrea had plans for an adult night out, the week before Christmas. They had two children at the time(now three) Stone who was around three, and Breeze who was almost a year old. It was a long night........not because they were bad kids, but Rick and I (never having children of our own) were not use to caring for such small children.

We started with food, they ate.......apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, eggs, pizza, chips, and we made Christmas cookies. We watched Christmas videos, The Grinch, Charlie Brown's Christmas,

and Emmit Otter's Jug Band Christmas. This all took place in the first hour, during the second

hour, we got out the guitars and sang songs, the kids had wooden spoons and pots and pans, so we had percussion. We were starting to panic, the kids were looking bored and Breeze was down to her last diaper.

The next hour, the kids were in the great room looking at the presents under the tree and admiring the nativity scene that my mom had bought us years ago. I soon realized that it was time for Breezie's last diaper. As I fastened the last one on her, the tape broke.............I know,

I would never win Mom of the Year Award......but we live twelve miles from any kind of store....

and yes I shamefully admit I duck taped her diaper!

By now, we are thinking James and Andrea have been kidnapped by Aliens and we are going to rear these kids........and they will be so warped. Rick and I convene in the kitchen going over our

emergency plan..........we hear Breeze's sweet little girl voice saying "come back Baby Jesus, come

back Baby Jesus". Now, we don't have a clue what has taken place in the thirty seconds we were in the kitchen, but as we rush back to the living room..........both kids are on their hands and knees sweeping their wooden spoons (remember the drums) under the sofa. They had taken

Baby Jesus out of the manger and somehow he was now under the sofa. All we could do was laugh.

It wasn't long after that, their parents picked them up. But "come back Baby Jesus" has become

one of my favorite Christmas stories. Tonight Rick and I watched Stone, Breeze, their younger sister Daisy and their dad James, perform in the Nutcracker. Their dad, was Mother

Ginger and it was quite a spectacle. But it will never compare to the night we looked for Baby Jesus under our sofa.