Santa Puzzle

    Sariah had given me for my birthday, among a couple of other things, a 1000 piece puzzle of Santa at the Manger. (she gave me another one for Christmas,but Ruth snatched that as quickly as I mentioned it was a repeat.). We have had it out since we put up our decorations. Benjamin worked for hours doing the edges and getting it started. We worked on it together a bit Monday. He is good! I mostly just sorted color groups. He could look at a smudge and say, “That’s the sheep’s eye.” or “That’s the donkey’s Biblical donkey.” (think about it.)

       When David and Teresa arrived sometime arrived midnight Wednesday, Benjamin and Teresa stayed up into the wee morning hours working on the puzzle.  While I was taking Joseph to work the next morning and doing some stocking stuffing shopping ( I got some good stuffers at the 99cent store including a green and gold Mustang Matchbox Car for David - green and gold are Cal Poly colors and the mustang (equine) is their mascot), they finished up the puzzle -  double locking the door to keep me from spoiling their surprise.  Benjamin now understands why so many people glue and frame their jig saw puzzles.  He does not want all that hard work undone and put back in the box for next year. 

   
    It is a pretty puzzle.  Some people think of Santa at the manger as the world bowing before Christ, kind of in a judgmental down on Santa and the commercialism of Christmas kind of way.  I think of it as one selfless giver of love worshiping and recognizing the Savior, the font of all love.  Personally, I think Christ probably likes Santa and what he represents to many of us. 

    I think Santa represents love, thinking of others, and caring especially for children. It is true I sometimes wonder why he brings more to rich children and  that I never quite liked the idea of this fellow taking credit for parents' sometimes great sacrifice, but in our house, Santa was always fairly low key and brought things for the family to enjoy together.  Lots of movies over the years!  (Oh, Santa, what we need is more shelves for the movies.)  This year he brought only one movie, "Up" which I hear is great, but haven't had time to watch yet.  He also brought  Super Mario (or something like that) for the Wii.  Very popular.  And a Presidential cookie recipe book.