I think my earliest Christmas memory is of decorating the manger. I liked the story of baby Jesus in the barn. As a kid, I loved animals and babies (actually, not much has changed; I still do). So seeing my mom's figurines of sheep and donkeys, and of course, baby Jesus, and getting to delicately run my fingers over their contours filled me with awe. Setting out a barn scene with these figures, and real straw was so thrilling, and I loved that my mom let me help. I was always allowed to shake out the hay from the bag and rearrange it just-so. I was a good straw sorter.

The first year I wanted to be included in this captivating tradition was the year I wanted to hold baby Jesus for the very first time. I could sense he was the pivotal part to this scene. He was the only one in the curio cabinet, after all. The wise men, and even Mary and Joseph were always packed away, wrapped up in newspaper every year with the horses and goats, and everyone else. But Jesus - clearly he was special, spending 11 months out of the year in the glass cabinet along with everything else I was not allowed to touch, and one month in the manger. This year, I was about three years old, and when my mom went over to the cabinet, I asked her to let me hold baby Jesus. I could see the hesitation in her face. And then I begged her to let me hold him! I knew he was the special piece, and I knew everyone wanted to handle him with the utmost care, and to be trusted with that care would be phenomenal. I asked a few more times, and reassured my mom again and again, "I won't drop him! I'll be careful! I can be careful!"

"Are you SURE you can hold him without dropping him?" my mom asked.

"YES!" I belted out. "I can! I can be careful! I promise!!"

"Well..." my mom said. "Okay, you can hold him."

Electrified, I waited in quiet glee for his small form to fill up my tiny hands. Mom placed baby Jesus delicately across my palms, held together in eager anticipation. For a split second, I was filled with awe and wonder, which suddenly and rapidly turned to horror and then crushing guilt as I saw baby Jesus tumble from my hands to the floor. Turns out the ceramic figurine was a bit heavier than I'd expected! My mom of course exclaimed something like, "Oh, Meghan!" not in anger so much as in exasperation. Probably at me as well as herself. I can imagine it as one of those, "What was I thinking?" moments on her part. I remember crying and my mom assuring me, "It's okay, I know you didn't mean to drop him."

I don't remember my dad gluing his foot back together, but I do remember feeling relieved that that was all that broke. Every year, we'd bring out the nativity scene, get baby Jesus from the curio cabinet, and add him last to complete the scene. And every year someone would say, "Remember the Christmas when Meghan dropped him? Haha!" I used to feel somewhat mortified at that, a bit embarrassed that my ruining the baby Jesus figurine was my mark on Christmas. But now, I see things differently. I inadvertently forever linked myself to the most critical part of the nativity scene! That, in itself is kind of cool.

Every year I looked at baby Jesus's glued together foot, where you could still see the cracks, and remembered the day I dropped him. But the part that stands out the most to me is when he first hit my hands, the exhileration of being entrusted with one of Mom's most prized possessions, and feeling so priveleged. And feeling so grateful that Mom didn't get furious with me, and realizing much later that that's because I obviously meant more to her than some ceramic figure. I also realized that my dad cared enough to fix something for her, to make it okay again, to save that Christmas, and in doing so, preserving the future of our nativity-setting-up tradition. I see now that the family ties linking the story together were more important than the event itself. And plus, I was able to redeem myself by placing baby Jesus in the manger many times throughout the years without ever dropping him again!

I know some people take solace in the idea of the perfect man, Jesus, the Son of God and all that. But me? It's the imperfect, cracked foot, baby Jesus that symbolizes Christmas for me - a reminder that mistakes and imperfections don't ruin the holidays; they're just part of the natural way of life, the stuff that makes for funny stories and light-hearted ribbing later on in life. And all of that is part of the collection of memories I cherish of us sitting around the livingroom as a family at Christmastime, recalling the day I broke baby Jesus's foot, and other memories of Christmases past, and laughing together.