Have you tried explaining to little ones about Baby Jesus being born in a manger? I have the cutest little Fisher Price Little People Manger Set....see, I'm getting to be a smarter mama...they can't break it! I'm also learning that with little ones...I just can't have those beautiful glass (BREAKABLE) ornaments out and the detailed (BREAKABLE) nativity scene we used to put out BC (before children)! Our Christmas tree is decorated half way down (to avoid our active one year old pulling off ornaments)! In addition, I have wonderful memories of setting up our manger with my little brother as we were kids. I want my kids to be able to manipulate it and play with it, make a lot of memories, but still fully respect and understand the meaning behind it. I bought ours years ago before they had this deluxe version, but it is a wonderful, tough little nativity scene that I would definitely recommend!
LaLa is finally getting where she understands the concept of Santa and Baby Jesus and everything Christmas. Remember teachable moments?! This was a perfect one. I wish there were more child-friendly Christmas centered kind of concepts that we could use! As we were putting it out piece by piece tonight, we talked about the three wise men, what a manger was, why Jesus was born there instead of the inn, what an inn was, why Jesus came to Earth, etc.
When you push the angel on the top of the manger, it sings Away in the Manger. Of course, we had to sing along with the angel. When the song says, "no crib for a bed," LaLa just could not understand this part because Jesus is lying in a "crib"-like thing in our manger. I explained (I thought well and simply) that it was what the animals ate out of, but that is all they had for Baby Jesus in the manger. As she put out the animals around the manger scene, she insisted that all the camels, the sheep, the horses, etc. were far away from the manger, which I thought was kind of odd. However, out of desperation that it was way past bath and bedtime, I just accepted her way and moved on with the task at hand. Little Bit sat intently the majority of the time and watched us. Periodically, she would point to baby Jesus and say, "baby". Little Bit would say, "no, that's baby Jesus."
Finally, our manger scene was all set up. I started to gather the girls up to go upstairs for baths and beds only to find Little Bit over by the manger scene with baby Jesus in her mouth. LaLa squealed her dramatic, ear-piercing scream followed by, "Nooooooooo, stoooop, you're eating BABY JEEEESUUUUS!" and snatched it away. She continued to coddle and rock this little baby Jesus figure saying..."I know your mommy had to put you in the animal's food because you didn't have a bed. BUT I put all of the animals far, far away so they wouldn't eat you in their food bowl. I should have put Little Bit far, far away too because now she's ate our baby Jesus. Mommy, maybe you should put our manger up higher before she gets a chance to take a bigger bite next time."
I thought it was even funnier that on amazon they have replacement baby Jesus'....just in case....I bookmarked it:).
Other nativity scene ideas and crafts:
homemade nativity scenes
Fisher Price's little people nativity set (also at Walmart...a bit cheaper)
Coloring Sheets of baby Jesus in Manger
Nativity Scene coloring sheets
Wonderful Site with lots of great ideas...nativity
Story of Baby Jesus...in Child-friendly language (This is a favorite site of mine that I use often with our little awana group at church)
Mama Drama Rule #82: Children are never too young to understand the special gift that God gave us!
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