The Parable of the Creche

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Every December, shortly before Christmas I post the following parable. It says a lot, I think, about my neighborhood, and possibly about human nature as well.

The Parable of the Creche

by Michael Swanwick

When first I came to Rosborough, long 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 the top of the roof--nor was it very fancy. The figures of Joseph and Mary, the Christ Child, and the animals were a couple of feet tall at most and there were sheets of Plexiglass over the front of the wooden stable to keep vandals from stealing them. But there was a painted backdrop of the hills of Bethlehem at night, the floor was strewn with real hay and the neighborhood folk loved it.

It was a common thing to see people standing before the creche, especially at night. Sometimes parents brought their small children to see it for the first time and the wonder they then displayed was genuinely moving. The creche provided a welcome touch of seasonality and community to the park.

Alas, Gorgas Park is public property, and it was only a matter of time before somebody pointed out that the creche violated the principle of separation of church and state. When the complaint finally came, the creche was taken out of the park and put in storage.

People were upset, of course. Nobody likes seeing a beloved tradition die. There was a certain amount of quiet grumbling.

So the kindly folks of Leverington Presbyterian Church, located just across the street from Gorgas Park, stepped in. They adopted the creche and put it up in 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. Formerly, it had been in an empty area, surrounded by trees, separated from our normal daily lives.  It just was not the same located in front of a church. The creche felt lessened in some strange way, made into a prop for the Presbyterians. You didn't see people standing in front of 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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