I Ate the Baby Jesus Last

It's Christmas - well, yesterday was Christmas, but whatever - and that makes this the perfect time to explain the title of my blog, which will also be the title of the memoir that I'm going to write if anything ever happens to me that's interesting enough that I should write a memoir. Probably after I marry Prince Carl Philip of Sweden.

Several Christmases ago I received my monthly visit from my home teachers. I expected that they would have some sort of spiritual message to share with me, because that's what they're supposed to do. But after we talked for a few minutes about school and work and things like that, the tables were turned.

One of my home teachers, Richard, said something about how it was important in this busy world to keep Christ as the focus of our Christmas. My words, not his, because if you had ever met Richard you would know that he is not a particularly eloquent person, bless his heart. Anyway. I thought that he would elaborate but then he asked me if I had ever made any special effort to focus on Jesus at Christmas.

I hate questions like that. Part of is because I am really terrible at explaining spiritual experiences. Part of it is because I'm the first to admit that I'm not a very good Christian. I never give money to panhandlers, I swear at bad drivers, and I laugh when I see teenagers fall off their skateboards. I'm not a bad person but I honestly couldn't think of anything specific I'd ever done to keep Christ in Christmas, aside from never having believed in Santa.

I mentioned that last part but Richard was a dog with a bone. "There has to be something you've done, Jill," he said with more than a hint of condescension. I thought his tone was pretty nervy for a man who had seen and enjoyed all three High School Musical movies but I didn't say so. Instead I grasped at the collective seven hours of my adolescence that I haven't suppressed and I started to tell a story. I wasn't sure where I was going with it but then I never am. I usually just start talking and hope that by the time I stop talking I will have gone somewhere.

This is the story that I told Richard.

"When I was a kid, my aunt Sue - she's dead now, but when she was alive, she made my family this white ceramic nativity. She died in a car accident - my aunt, that is, and I remember being told that she'd been asleep in the car, and for like seven years after that I was afraid to fall asleep in the car because I didn't want to die. My aunt looked a little like the Disney version of Snow White. Not that that's important, but she did."

(For some reason I felt the need to mention all of this as part of my Christmas story. Also I don't remember who told me that my aunt was asleep, and I'm not even sure that she was. But I was afraid to sleep in the car until I was about 16.)

"Anyway. It was a really beautiful nativity set and very breakable but my parents trusted me with it because by the time the fourth child comes along they just don't care anymore. And every year I would carefully set up this nativity, and arrange all the pieces just so, and I did them in a particular order, always putting the baby Jesus in last because it seemed like the thing to do.

"One Christmas when I was maybe 15 or 16 - I don't think I was sleeping in the car yet - President Worthen, our stake president, came by the house with a treat for Christmas. President Worthen taught Spanish at the high school, and I didn't like him as a Spanish teacher but as a stake president I guess he was an okay guy. I was going to college soon enough, I hoped, so I kind of didn't care. I did wish I had taken French instead, though."

(I said all this too, because once I start talking I tend to just keep going until someone shuts me up.)

"Anyway. President Worthen and his wife had dropped off this tray that contained a white chocolate nativity, and it looked exactly like the nativity my aunt Sue made! He must have had the same molds or something - 'Except our set has an angel,' I said to my dad, who had answered the door, and he just sort of smirked and I realized he had eaten the chocolate angel between the front door and the kitchen, because that's the kind of guy my dad was.

"I guess my parents weren't big on white chocolate because I remember eating the nativity by myself, and I did it strategically. I thought, I should do this like I do with the ceramic one, and so I ate the pieces in a specific order on certain days, spacing it out, and I saved the holy family for last, for Christmas eve. I wanted to do it right, so I ate the baby Jesus last.

"I really feel like I kept Christ in Christmas that year. And also in my belly."

And that was the last time Richard ever asked me a leading question.

The nativity set my aunt made is mine now, and every year when I set it up, I remember the white chocolate year, and I remember how proud of myself I was for nibbling at the straw before eating the baby, and I think, that's probably one of those things that God made a special note of. When he's reviewing my life with me, I will remind Him that I ate the baby Jesus last, and He will thank me for it before sending me to my cozy little shack in West Hell.

So ... yeah.

Don't ask me to tell you any Christmas stories unless you're prepared to lose respect for me. And if you want to bring me a Christmas treat, remember that I like white chocolate.