Nativity Herd But Not Scene

Our nativity scene is considered "collectible," with new pieces issued every year. The full series fills three catalog pages, and every year for the past decade, we've received four pieces as gifts.
 
Doing the math, it's astonishing how many people have come to see baby Jesus.
 
I can't help feeling sorry for Mary. Here she is, only an hour postpartum, and thirty people dropped in to visit. There are the Wise Men, naturally, and some shepherds. We have two angels, whom I assume don't take up much space or want coffee. But what about the musicians and the centurions? The Pharisee holding a scroll, who seems to have wandered in from another set of figurines?
 
All Mary wants is to rest and enjoy her new baby (who looks to be about the size of my eight-month-old son: ouch). But someone is walking through the back of the stable balancing a bale of hay on his shoulders, and another man is pouring water. There's a vendor selling apples. Who buys fruit at two o'clock in the morning, and why wasn't this guy around in the second trimester when Mary woke up craving a persimmon? It's the middle of the night--can't these people go home?
 
Instead everyone stands crammed into a minuscule barn on our end-table, and they're all in each other’s faces. Joseph can't even send his guests over to the shepherds (who have a tent on our bookcase) because someone in his infinite wisdom brought an elephant; it might trample the sheep.
 
Looking at Mary trying to adore her newborn among the tumult, I'm reminded of myself after just giving birth. I needed to spend quiet hours memorizing every inch of my son, and instead I had nurses, a pediatrician, an obstetrician who hadn't bothered to show up while I was in labor, a lactation consultant, a social worker, a phlebotomist, the meal service folks, and someone I'm not even sure was an employee of the hospital.
 
Clearly all these figures arrived at Jesus' manger through marketing rather than Bethlehem-wide invitations. But the artist’s desperate quest to carve new figures for every Christmas season reveals a truth larger than, "we want to make money." (Yes, even in America, there is one.)
 
Because the cast of the actual Nativity is so limited—a handful of shepherds and some wise men—the manufacturer has resorted to carving individuals in the acts of their daily lives.
 
This was how Jesus arrived: on a day when someone sold fruit and someone brought a bale of hay into the stables. Someone else carried water. The oxen and the cows did their usual deeds in the stalls, so someone mucked them out. A Pharisee preached about God's redemption unaware that redemption was already in process.
 
A sane woman might put a stop to this: please, no more collectible figures!  I may leave most of the nativity scene in boxes this year, but how do you choose which ones? When Jesus was born, someone had to fetch the water. Someone had to sell apples. Do I really want to stand as the arbiter of which of these plastic pieces is allowed to adore Jesus?
 
Of course not. I'd hate to stand between anyone and God. And anyhow, my kids love the elephant.

Jane Lebak is a lot more interesting online than in real life. She has one husband, four children, two cats, one novel out of print, and one novel in print. The resulting chaos ends up on her weblog at http://philangelus.wordpress.com.