When I was growing up, one of my favorite parts of Christmas was getting out the nativity. In our neighborhood, about a block away from our house, a woman ran this little ceramics shop, and one year she helped the women in our ward (LDS congregation) make nativities. My mom didn't just make the basic Mary/Joseph/Jesus set, though; she kept going and made the wise men, the shepherds, the sheep, the cow, two camels, and a pair of lamps. Hers is painted in rich colors, then antiqued, and she put jewels on the wise men's hats. I loved all the pieces, but the best part was the baby Jesus and his manger; he came out of the manger, and there was an imprint of his body left in the blankets. (Once, when I was at my friend Kristen's house and admiring her made-at-church nativity, I discovered that their baby Jesus was glued into his manger and I still remember how much that bothered me.) I would lift him out of his manger and cradle him in my hands and be filled with a feeling that was unique from all my other Christmas feelings. The spirit  instead of the anticipation/desire thing. (A photo-of-a-layout that's about my mom's nativity, thus the not-so-nice photo!)

So, a couple of years after I was married, when my mom offered to make me my own nativity, I was thrilled. I decided to go with a white-and-gold version, just because I wanted to have a different feel from my childhood nativity. She gave it to me on Christmas Day, 1996. And every year since then, I've looked forward to getting out my own nativity. It started my collection of nativities, which now fills my entire front room, but the original has always been my favorite.

This year, when I got out the decorations, I just had a feeling: something is going to get broken this year. I didn't even get out my little village, because it's down at Kaleb's level. I thought it would all be OK, and that I was overreacting. But I made sure to tell all of my kids, very sternly, that there was to be NO ROUGH-HOUSING in the front room. No balls, no playing puppy, no running around, nothing. My kids love the nativities too, so they promised that none of that would happen.

Fast forward a few weeks, to the afternoon Kendell and I went to see I am Legend (excellent movie, by the way, despite what the critics said) with his department at work. I went shopping after the movie, and my phone rang. It was Jakey, in tears; what I could understand between his sobs was "ball," "Chris," "nativity" and "broken." "You broke my nativity?" I shrieked, right there in the jewelry department at JC Penny. "Which one?" "The wh-wh-wh-white one."

I took a deep breath. I reminded myself that people are always more important than things. I didn't yell after that first shriek. I told him I would talk to him about it when I got home, and finished my shopping in an angry sort of fuzz. I cried all the way home, feeling silly for being so upset about an object. Really, if it had been any other nativity, I would have been upset but not sick-upset. Not bawl-all-the-way-home upset. I kept thinking: every single Christmas from now on, I'll remember my broken nativity and feel this feeling all over again. As well as feeling the absence, the not-having that results from a break.

I came in to find my shattered Mary:

This was actually better than I had expected; I thought the whole set was broken. Still, what is a nativity without a Mary? Pointless. I got the whole story: Despite the no-friends-over-when-Haley's-babysitting rule, she'd given Jake permission to have his friend Chris over. And despite my stay-out-of-the-front-room-with-your-rough-and-tumble-boy activities, they'd decided to play catch. In my room full of fragile, breakable nativities.

Jacob was heartsick. He knows that the nativity is important to me. Groundings were handed out---to Haley for breaking the first rule, to Jake for disobeying my no-balls rule. And my shattered Mary simply lay there on the table, all during the Christmas season, shattered and sad.

It's one of the things that have helped me procrastinate putting away Christmas: what do I do with my Mary? Just throw her away? And why keep the rest of the pieces, when there's no point to a nativity without a Mary? I felt a little shattered myself. On Saturday, I decided to at least try, and I managed to glue my Mary back together. She looks a little bit haggard and worse-for-wear, and there is a small piece I never could find.  The seams are fairly visible. But I am at least able to put it away and move on. I almost sort of...well, "like" isn't the right word. But I can commiserate with my broken Mary. There is something in motherhood that is destructive anyway, that breaks you and puts you back together with a few pieces missing, definitely worse for the wear. But also, still, remarkably: peaceful. Able to carry on with the job at hand. Able to push on. Mary's OK. And hopefully, each year at Christmas-time when I get out my nativities, what I will remember is not that horrible feeling in the car on the way home, but this realization: going on anyway is what we mothers do.