My Mom's Jesuses

There are 26 Jesuses in our living room... (How do you say more than one Jesus? Jesuses? Jesus'? I don't remember! They both look wrong...) My mom collects nativities and creches (nativities are made up of everybody- shepherds, wisemen, animals, angels while the creches are just Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus) so we currently have a LOT of baby Jesus' in the living room... There's an Eskimo nativity, a Russian one, a Swedish one, a Mexican one, a Japanese one, a clear glass one, a German one, several childrens sets, a native American one... In fact, with the little ones running about we can't put all of my Mom's collection up 'cuz there's not enough room that's up too high for them to grab 'em and break 'em.

My husband is concerned that we are giving our kids the wrong idea about Jesus, but I think they are more sophisticated than that... :) What kind of wrong idea could they get anyway? That Jesus is everywhere they go... That's true. That there are multiple Jesuses? I think they get that that's not true. We've talked about there being just one Jesus... That he's not just one nationality? Well, while he was living on earth he was Jewish and we've definitely got that represented. However, we'll see all nationalities in heaven and I like the idea of Jesus being presented as one nationality would see Him...

I bought the Fisher Price manger scene last year so that the girls would have one they could play with 'cuz they kept wanting to hold the baby Jesuses- I put it away for the year and just got it out today. They were so excited to see it again. They love playing with it, and I love talking to them about Baby Jesus, Mama Mary, and Daddy Joseph. I love them being able to hold the baby and I love seeing them really getting that Jesus was a baby who was born just like them and grew up... Yes, he's special and different and God's son, but it's so wonderful for them to have a tangible way of relating to Him...