The snake ate the baby Jesus

We put our Christmas decorations up on Sunday. The Boy has been having a blast playing with all of the “new toys.” He has little conversations between the snowmen, has them take rides in his cars and trucks, and just generally enjoys himself. Last night I sorted through the last unpacked box of decorations and found our pathetic little nativity set (no offense Mom, I know you gave it to us, but the figures do look a little scary…baby Jesus looks like baby Damien and frankly that disturbs me a bit). I wouldn’t have even put it out, but I knew The Boy would enjoy playing with the figures especially since it included a baby (the baby Jesus of course). The Boy started asking questions about the set, and DH was happy to oblige. I expected different answers from DH, since he isn’t the friendliest person about religion, but he did well and fed The Boy the “right” answers about each figurine. The Boy started acting out scenes with the figures, starting with “the fairy” flying in to help the people. DH corrected him, that it was in fact an angel and not a fairy, but The Boy said “no, it is a fairy” in the way he does when he knows we are obviously WRONG and he is RIGHT. As in, you are crazy Dad, I know this is a fairy, why on earth would you think it was an angel, just look at the wings Dad?! Our lack of religious exposure for our kids is really showing through isn’t it?

A little later in the evening, The Boy was occupying himself and we hear him say “The snake just ate the baby Jesus.” Sure enough he was playing with his dollar store wooden snake and had made it eat baby Jesus. He saw that we laughed at this, so the snake slithered over to us and The Boy said “The baby Jesus is in the snake’s tummy now.” We of course thought this was hilarious and burst into laughter. Forget about the fact that we are failing to expose our child to Christianity for a moment because this is just plain funny! I can’t recall exactly how we responded to The Boy, but I think we just let him move on. I’m sure tomorrow the snake will end up eating “the fairy,” or perhaps “the director” (he seems to be calling the kings director, or maybe he is saying conductor). I meant to take a picture of the snake curled up inside of the nativity box, but I missed the opportunity. I’m sure The Boy will come up with something equally cute before this holiday season is over.