The best Christmas gift

Last year my husband gave me the best Christmas present ever--a giant creche. I've wanted one since I was five. My mother was playing some kind of elaborate guessing game about a gift she'd bought for under the tree. I couldn't follow, the only thing I could think of going under the tree was a creche. The more I thought I was right the more excited I got. Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, it would be wonderful. She kept stressing how delicate the gift was and how important it would be for me to take good care of it. What a let down when it was just a jewelry box. She couldn't understand my disappointment. I couldn't understand how anyone wouldn't prefer a creche. Mom put creches in the same category as Santa Clause. A few years earlier we'd gone to the mall and I'd wondered who the guy with the beard was. My mother and I are just very different people.
Anywho, the first thing I bought for Mea's second Christmas was small, inexpensive creche she was free to play with. She rearranged those figurines for hours. It was highly satisfying to watch. Through the years the set has suffered greatly. No animals have their ears, a wiseman is missing his hand. The HolyFamily is doing OK, but everybody else has suffered for my children's faith. Two years ago we bought the Little People Nativity Set, but I don't like it as well. Last year, Sam's Club had a beautiful, gigantic nativity set, and I walked by it, and I walked by it, and I walked by it. Every time I'd stop for a good stare, then I'd check the price tag and I'd roll on. It was getting really close to Christmas day when I discovered they'd significantly reduced the price. I took a deep breath and rolled by again. When I got home I told Kurt about the price reduction. He thought it was decently priced. I decided it was too much. I could live without it. It wasn't that important, but it was.
Next shopping trip I expected that the set would be gone, and the wild happiness with which I found it still there made me take out my cell. Kurt didn't sound surprised. "Go ahead and get it. It'll be your Christmas present." I don't normally do things like that, but when I could imagine my grandchildren playing with it I realized it was more than an object it was a way to stir up our faith. Poor Kurt, it weighs a ton and we put it up on the bookcases so that it won't be damaged by the kids. I wouldn't change a thing. The reason for the season dominates our living room and that's the best gift we all could receive.