the holy family

I was so excited for our Halloween costumes this year. I had it all planned out. Rory would be Joseph, I would be Mary and we would drive all around to friends and family houses in a panic, with Rory pleading for room in their Inn, telling them that his wife was great with child. In my head, this was genius. I had my mom get costumes from church and I was ready for the drama to unfold.

In an odd twist, I actually was going into labor on Halloween, so I never got to live out this brilliant costume idea. Instead, about the time I was hoping to be going door to door, laughing about going into labor, I was actually in active labor, trying to survive from contraction to contraction. (It should be noted, however, that the picture above of me as Mary was taken moments before we went to the hospital the first time. As we were leaving the house I was lamenting the fact that such a perfect costume would not be used and so I put it on and had Rory take my picture. This might be added to my birth story: If you are trying on halloween costumes on your way to the hospital, you probably aren't in serious labor yet.)

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when Ivar was asked to be baby Jesus at my home church. Remember how we just weren't quite comfortable having a 5th grader carry our newborn up stairs while wearing a robe cinched up with a rope? Our baby just felt to fragile to hand over so soon...

So, imagine our great surprise when last weekend, as we were walking into church for the Christmas program, we were intercepted by the nativity coordinator and asked if the three of us would be Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. Rory's reply was, "For crying out loud!" (I think he knew this holy family thing wasn't going to just go away) We agreed because this time we would be holding our baby and as Rory put it so eloquently, "well, we'll be there anyway..." Thank you, Joseph.

So on Christmas Eve, Ivar got to be Jesus. And he was fantastic. He kicked his bare feet and wiggled his hands the whole time. I'm afraid I looked more like Cousin Itt than Mary, as my hair covered my face the whole time I looked down to keep Ivar content. But it was great, and a truly sweet moment for our little family.