I can still picture her bent over the greenware figure, intermittently dipping the small sponge into the saucer of water, squeezing out the excess, and smoothing down the seams.
"I hope to get it fired tomorrow," my mother said, looking down her nose through the lower bifocal lens, "And then I can start painting it."
I tried to visualize the finished product – a regal camel adorned in bright colors fit for a king...or a wiseman. My mother's hand-painted ceramic manger set was slowly coming together, each piece personally sanded and painted by her own hands. Even at sixteen I knew the timeless legacy this work of art would hold for future generations.
Home School Tracker
Every Christmas, upon completion, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, shepherds, kings, camels, sheep, and donkeys, set upon a cottony foundation, adorned the top of my grandmother's hand-me-down, upright piano. Its display was a tradition initiated in my teen years and carried on to this day... but in a different home.
The time came when my parents made the difficult decision to "scale-down". As they neared their retirement years, the maintenance of the two-story colonial house was proving to be too much. In preparing for the sale of their home, where I spent my teenager years, my mother sorted through all her Christmas decorations. Her many hand-painted, ceramic houses and figures she spread out on the dining room table. And the precious manger set – the one I found her painting every day for months upon my return home from school – for this she made a special announcement.
"I want everyone to choose what they would like," my mother announced after a family dinner with her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren. "But the manger set, I want to keep together. So I'd like each of my children to pick a number from one to five, and if it is the number that I have written on the box, it is theirs. The only stipulation is that the winner cannot choose any other decorations. The manger scene will be the only one."
Oh, how I coveted that precious manger set! The memories of my mother's time and toil were priceless to me. And the ever-looming reality, that I could loose my mother at any time in her battle with breast cancer, made the desire for her handiwork even greater. The five slips of folded paper were distributed, and as each was opened, I not only felt my own heart pounding, but also that of my siblings.
"Who has number one?" my mother asked with a smile. She was as anxious to give, as we were to receive. My heart leaped as I looked down at my slip. Was it true? Did I really hear what I held in my hand? My eyes immediately teared, as my hands broke out in a sweat. The lot fell to me.
A year and a half later, after my second Christmas of displaying the prized manger scene in my own home, my mother died. But the memory of her love, and an awareness of her presence, is still felt every December as I unwrap each painted, ceramic figure, and carefully place it on our small, heirloom, drop-leaf table. Yearly, I remind my children of its history and cherished memories.
Featured homeschool resource: http://homeschoolenrichment.com/
