Little Clara Wembley was visiting her "nana," Kate Bates, this week. Kate took her down the block to see the creche set that the Newlands had put up in their front yard. Kate was glad to see that Jenny Newland had taken the scarlet "A" off of Mary's robe. Jenny's husband, Jake, had put it there to, as he said, make a point: "If God doesn't want us to fool around with another man's wife, how come He was doing it?" Clara is two, and Kate didn't want to have to explain that to her.
She had to explain something else, though. Another three inches of snow had fallen, quite a bit of it on the baby Jesus. "That's not right," said Clara. "He'll be cold. Why doesn't someone get that snow off of him? We should tell his nana. She'd do it. Who is his nana? We should go tell her."
Kate, who is an intelligent and highly educated nana, was caught with her mittens off, which, as cold as it was, meant red-handed. She had no idea who Jesus' nana was. She got out her cell phone and dialed retired pastor Randall Nathan. ["Dialing" is what older people call the punching of numbers on current phones.] Rev. Nathan's wife, Claire, answered. Kate explained her dilemma, one nana to another. "Jesus' nana was Anne,"answered Claire, who knows many things.
Kate relayed this information to Clara. "Let's go get her," said Clara. "I think she's sick or something," said Kate, "or she would have done it already. Maybe you and I should just go ahead and do it ourselves." This pleased Clara. She brushed the snow off the baby Jesus, who was just at her height, while Kate took care of his parents, whose heads reached a bit higher. Satisfied, Kate turned to see that the baby Jesus was gone.
Clara had the baby Jesus in her arms and was ringing the Newland's doorbell. Before Kate could climb over the manger and get to her, Jake Newland was at the door. "How come you didn't wipe the snow off the baby Jesus?" Clara demanded. "His nana is sick, so my nana and I had to do it" Then she saw Jake's walker. "Oh, I guess maybe you couldn't..." she said. "That's right," said Jake. "I was just waiting for the right person to come along to wipe the snow off Jesus so everybody could see him. Now I know who the right person is, so you and your nana should come in for hot chocolate. Bring Jesus with you. He can warm up before he has to go back out in the cold."
While they were at the kitchen table with their hot chocolate, Jake said, "Clara, you being the right person and all, I have a question for you. Since God doesn't want us to..."
On the way home, her nana told her it was just an accident that Jenny Newland dropped her husband's walker on his head right then, but Clara thought that seemed a bit odd.
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