It is time, once again, for the heartening holiday tale of “Baby Jesus and the Furry Imposter.” It was a decades-long tradition in the Imbrogno family. The youngest among us would deliver the porcelain baby Jesus on Christmas Eve to a porcelain bed of straw in the family’s traditional Christmas creche scene, concluding the scene and commencing Christmas Eve celebrations. It was always a sacred moment for my mother — a continuity, a handing-down of tradition.
My mother and father are long gone, but the tradition has continued in the family. So, it was that my older brother, David Imbrogno, brought the porcelain manger figures to our large holiday family gathering in 2010 to re-enact the ritual. But wait! Baby Jesus had accidentally been left behind. What to do? What to do? Wait. Just exactly WHO — or what?— was he expecting to occupy the place of Baby Jesus in His Manger?!?
VIDEO: It’s a Baby Jesus Thing
FREE SUBSCRIBE
For updates on new essays, poems, diatribes, photo essays, experimental videos & sorta memoir excerpts, subscribe to this site’s free e-mail newsletter: TheStoryIsTheThing.substack.com
