nativity

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! We put our Christmas decorations up this weekend. The joy of a fake tree (other than the fact that my sister is not allergic to it like she is a real tree) is that you can put it up early and not worry about it dying before you get to the new year.

We also put up the Nativity. How do I describe our nativity sets? We have several. Yes, several.

There is the plush one that the toddlers can play with. That unfortunately dogs also seem to love!

There is the old one from Grandpa Kuratko that is very fragile (about half of the sheep only have three legs or less!) and has to be kept in the glass case.

There is the Mexican one that is desert themed with cactus and rattlesnakes that we picked up in New Mexico a few years back.

And then there is the Fontinini. I don't have words to describe this. There are well over a hundred pieces. All hand painted. But plastic so the kids can play with them. We like to play the game where you give the kids something to find like "Can you find three cats?" and they have to search until they find them. Each of the characters has a name and is a real character from the Bible and comes with a little sheet of paper that tells their story. For example, Samantha is the woman who made the swaddling clothes for Baby Jesus. Who knew?