A couple of weeks ago I was coming back to Clinton from a road trip. Cutting though the country, I went by the old home place at Clement. I smiled as I saw the old manger scene back up once again in the yard at Daddy’s house, where my sister and brother in law have lived for several years.

Seeing it up this year is extra special because things could have been much different. You see, Gail and Danny were involved in a bad auto accident this past summer, and received some very serious injuries. If you could see what was left of their car after it was hit, you would know that it could have been much worse. But, praise the Lord, they are both getting around now pretty well. Well enough for Danny to supervise as their sons put up the manger scene the weekend after Thanksgiving. Thinking about that, I decided to reprint an old column about that old manger scene. Here it is with a couple of corrections.

The manger scene back at Clement has been going up for over fifty (now around sixty) years. And I helped put it up for at least forty of them. The manger scene consists of plywood cutouts of all the characters of the nativity. Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, the wise men, sheep, camels, a donkey and, of course, baby Jesus. The manger itself is plywood, with the back and the two sides and roof. When daddy built the manger he made it easy to take apart, put together and store. Well, most of the time it was easy.

Every year after Thanksgiving it would be time. First, we would load the manger on the back of the pickup at the barn and take it out and set it up. Most of the time it wasn’t that difficult, although setting the roof on top of the walls could be a little tricky. Then it was time to place the characters. And every character had a place. Mary, Joseph and Jesus under the manger. Shepherds, animals and wise men outside the manger, but each at a specific spot. Pa made sure of that. We would drive a tobacco stick in the ground and nail each cutout to the sticks to hold them up. We would put the star over the manger and set the spotlight and we would be finished.

It must have been a tradition because it was something we did every year. To be honest, many times I was busy and really didn’t want to bother with it. But I would get that phone call saying, “What are you doing tomorrow? You know we’ve got to put up the manger scene.” So I would head down to Clement. Daddy was very particular and organized. Everything had a place and it had to be done right. It could be very frustrating to someone in a hurry to get done, like me.

But I had noticed that over those last few years putting up the manger scene had become more important to daddy. He would say something like, “Well, I don’t know about next year, but we got it up again this year.”

My thoughts go back to that last year when daddy, Terri and I put up the manger scene. Pa was supervising while sitting in a chair, pointing to where everything was supposed to go. And I was getting frustrated. I was nailing up the manger and it wasn’t going very well. Daddy was an excellent carpenter. I’m not. I suppose it must skip a generation or something.

“Why do we have to put up this thing every year?” I thought. No, I wasn’t thinking about little baby Jesus in that stable I was nailing on at that moment. Terri knew what I was feeling and walked over to me.

“Remember, cherish the moment,” she whispered.

She was right. Here I was with my two favorite people in this world, doing something together, and I’m getting upset over bending a stupid nail and a pointing finger. I calmed down and started actually cherishing the moment. Of course, my nephew, Joey, driving up and getting Pa to ride with him to check on something also helped. After we finished and he got back home, Pa, Terri and I went to Hardee’s for supper. We joked and laughed and enjoyed ourselves because the manger scene had been put up one more time. I ended up really cherishing the moment because in just over a month later Pa would be gone.

And eight (now fourteen) years later, I still cherish the moment. The Christmas season can be frantic and frustrating. But be careful, be intentional (I like that word) to cherish the moment. Because you never know…

(And this year I’ve been reminded again how true that is.)