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Posting this tale is a Christmas tradition with me. Every word of it is true and I share it because... Well, because human beings are difficult and yet, somehow, lovable too. Enjoy!
When first I came to Roxborough, more than forty years ago, the
creche was already a tradition of long standing. Every year it
appeared in Gorgas Park during the Christmas season. It wasn't all that
big -- maybe seven feet high at its tip -- and it wasn't very fancy. The
figures of Joseph and Mary, the Christ child, and the animals were a
couple of feet high, and there were sheets of Plexiglas over the front
of the wooden construction to keep people from walking off with them.
But there was a painted backdrop of the hills of Bethlehem at night, the
floor was strewn was real straw, and it was genuinely loved.
It was a common sight to see people standing before the creche,
especially in the evening, admiring it. Sometimes parents brought their
small children to see it for the first time and that was genuinely
touching. It provided a welcome touch of seasonality and community to
the park.
Alas, Gorgas Park was publicly owned, and it was only a matter of time
before somebody complained that the creche violated the principle of the
separation of church and state. When that complaint finally came, the
creche was taken out of the park and put into storage.
People were upset of course. Nobody liked seeing a beloved tradition
disappear. There was a certain amount of muttering and grumbling.
So the kindly people of Leverington Presbyterian Church, located just
across the street from the park, stepped in. They adopted the creche and
put it up on the yard in front of their church, where it could be seen
and enjoyed by all.
But did this make us happy? It did not. The creche was simply not the
same, located in front of a church. It seemed lessened in some strange
way, made into a prop for the Presbyterians. You didn’t see people
standing before it anymore.
I was in a local tappie shortly after the adoption and heard one of the barflies holding forth on this very subject:
The god-damned Christians," he said, "have hijacked Christmas."
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