My own River Jordan

As referenced in the post that now follows this one, we have the Little People Nativity set. It was something Logan got as a gift three years ago. We put it up as our only Nativity the previous two years and Logan played with it relentlessly. I pulled the pieces out of the toy box where it's been buried under a lot of other ignored items since January.

I handed Logan the edifice first. "Stable" he said and tossed it down waiting for the next piece.

I handed him what he assumed was a Shepard - at least he was no longer calling Joseph Moses. I corrected him and handed him a cow and a camel. I dug out one wiseman.

Logan added Sarah from Megan's amusement park set. We found a sheep from the farm and another Sarah dressed in a pink bunny suit. I headed to the toy chest in Logan's room. In it we found another wise man and Mary. A mad search and some upturning of other items in various rooms produced the fair-haired angel.

We found everything BUT the one thing that actually made this the Nativity -- the Baby Jesus.

I turned more stuff over. I looked in all the places I had looked in previously. I told Bruce that we were going to Hell. Baby Jesus was MIA.

"I remember seeing him somewhere," he said without worry. He thought a moment and then said "Did you check the bathroom?"

"The bathroom?" I said with as much disbelief and sarcasm as I could muster with two kids pulling on my leg.

"Seriously, I think I remember him being used as a bath toy after last Christmas," he replied without taking his eyes off his football game.

"What? Were y'all performing baptisms or something?" I asked him. He just laughed told me to look in that linen closet next to the tub where I'd been shoving the toys that threatened to take over our bathroom.

And there he was - in all his Little People glory - the Baby in the manger hiding in my linen closet.

The only thing missing now is the last wiseman, and no, apparently he wasn't baptized yet.