When our kids were little, each Christmas I would set up two nativity scenes, one was glass and for display, the other one was plastic. The kids and their friends weren’t allowed to touch the glass one but the plastic one was there just so they could play with it.

During play times Mary and Joseph had some unusual adventures, riding on dinosaurs, swimming in the sink; once they even helped us make cookies. And for such a small little thing Baby Jesus got around quite a lot too. I would find him in the laundry when I went through pockets, buckled into a car seat, or snuggled down into my daughter’s pillow.

One day when the kids were napping and I was cleaning up a little I found a plastic pig standing in the beautiful glass nativity scene with his snout resting on Baby Jesus. Pink, ugly plastic in my personal reenactment of the beautiful Christmas story.

I was reaching to move it when I realized…

The whole reason Jesus came to earth was to save all of us plastic, pink pigs. More than any beautiful decoration that little pig represented the true beauty of Christmas.