The Dog Ate My Nativity

In the early 1990's, Avon made the "My First Christmas Story" nativity set for children.  The figurines came in three three-piece sets of soft rubber figurines:  1.  Mary, Joseph and Jesus 2. Three Wise Men, and 3. cow, donkey and sheep.  If my memory serves me correctly - and I'm pretty sure this is one of the rare times it does - Mitch and Amanda were ages 2 and 1 the year I bought the whole set so they could have their own nativity, and to distract them from wanting to play with the breakable figures in our larger nativity.  

Image from E-bay Auction

And, what's a nativity without a stable?  So Dave and Mitch built a stable out of scraps of lumber with a wood shingle roof.  Of course, Dave made the cuts, but Mitch helped pound the nails with his own little 2 or 3-year-old hands.  For nearly twenty years, this little nativity has been a part of our family decorations, always placed on a low shelf or under the Christmas tree where little ones were free to play and rearrange to their little hearts delight.  

It became a sort of running joke for Dave to put one of the Wise Men behind the stable (claiming it had been a long trip so naturally he needed a "rest stop") just so Amanda would get annoyed and move it back.  Then she would put all the figures inside the stable - where it's warmer and they could see better - and I would move most of them back out so the arrangement looked nicer....

Last Saturday, the My First Christmas Story scene met a tragic end.  Dave and I went to Manhattan to the KSU/ISU football game and returned home late - thanks to a faulty speed sensor which would not allow the transmission to shift, which meant we drove 120 miles at a max of 40 mph, but that's another story - to find that the stable and it's inhabitants had been chewed to bits (literally) by Gabby the Big Red Idiot Dog.  Below is all that remains - a lone Wise Man and the baby Jesus in a roofless, slightly gnawed stable. Somewhere in a box in the basement is a very grateful lamb who got separated from the others during the move and so avoided the massacre.

Though we are long past the need for our kids to have a plastic nativity, I still loved it for the sentimental value and hoped that grandkids would play with it some day.  The stable can be repaired so, just out of curiosity, I searched E-bay for replacement figurines.  The only full set I found was going for $76!  So I guess it is not to be.  But I think I will continue to display the sad little Wise Man and the baby Jesus as a monument to . . .  Well, I'm not sure to what - I suppose to having your pets spayed or neutered to avoid more Big Red Idiot Dogs.