Joseph Has Gone Missing

I noticed this morning that Joseph has gone missing. He’s left the little peaceful family in the manger under my Christmas tree. Maria is now stuck all alone with a shepherd and the three wise guys. Wise men may be a more accurate terminology, I think. But that is an oxymoron, as my friend Lois would say.

It must confuse our nanny (the new one) quite a bit, as I have noticed that she recently has decided to take charge of the religious education of my children. I heard her explain to my daughter all about Jesus, and Maria, and the ox and the donkey. Now that Joseph is gone, I think she has given the shepherd the task of being Joseph, but any decent christian knows that Joseph is not the guy that carries the lamb on his shoulder in the manger.

That manger has quite a history. Growing up in a religiously mixed family can be a bit of a challenge at times. What religion do you follow? We solved that quite conveniently by picking all the nice bits of all the religious feasts, and dropping all the demanding stuff. And so we celebrate all the time, because apart from the Islamic feasts, we are blessed in Lebanon with not one Christmas and Easter, but two. (Different christians, what can I say?) With Christmas we therefore get the tree and the turkey, but skip the midnight mass, because getting everyone out of bed in time for church is a bit of a hassle.

And under the tree we have a manger. When I was young we had a manger under the Christmas tree, I played endlessly with the sheep and the ox and the donkey, and hubbie decided that this was a tradition to continue. So when Eddie was 4, we bought him a manger. “And you’ve got to explain who’s who”, insisted hubbie, “otherwise it’s useless.”
There I went.
‘This is Maria, and here is the donkey and the ox, and Joseph, and the three wise men” and on and on I went. Eddie was quite engaged in the whole story.
‘And who is this?” Eddie finally asked, pointing at the baby in the crib.
“Oh, that’s Jesus.”
”Ooooooh,” replied my son, “putting his hand in front of his mouth, “that’s a bad word.”

It took me a while before I figured it out. Whenever something goes wrong in the house, and I get upset, I curse, loud and frequently. And Jesus is the unfortunate victim. “No no, this is baby Jesus. He’s nice,” I tried to explain, but for my son, the impression was made.

My housekeeper, who has worked in the Gulf for a number of years, pointed out to me that my hubbie must be the only muslim in the world who says ‘Jesus Christ’ when cursing. He’s got that bit from me. Cultural diffusion, and all that. I went out, bought some books, and we got around the baby Jesus bit. From that moment on he saw Jesus everywhere, as he features quite a bit in East Beirut, and he pointed him out everywhere, just as he would with his favorite soccer hero.

When the Christmas tree came, and I asked him it was time to put the manger under the tree, he still remembered all the names. But that baby? What was that baby’s name again? He knew it was something that his Mom said when she was upset, and it wasn’t really a nice word.
“Okay Mom, where do you want me to put baby bull****”?
And that was the end of the religious education of my son. I figured that it was no use anyway. But we kept the manger, it is a nice tradition.

My daughter now, just like I used to do, can play for hours on end with the little statues. The shepherd misses a leg, and the animals no longer have any ears. One of the wise man’s crown is chipped, but it doesn’t matter. The Play Mobil horses sleep in the manger, and the Barbie car drives the holy family around the living room now and then. Action man stands guard with his AK47, making sure that the holy family is safe and all that.

But to no avail. Joseph has skipped the crib, and he’s gone AWOL. We will probably find him under the couch in spring, when we take the carpets out.