The Happy Village

Like every other female at Christmas time I too have a village. I have a toy shop, church, house, another toy shop and a couple other buildings. Of course no village is complete without the trees, carolers, ice pond, etc. Pretty basic. Starting last year, we put the nativity scene right in the middle of the village. It doesn't really belong there, I know. But the girls LOVE to play with it all. Normally this would be the type of situation that I would explain to the girls is 'Mommy's stuff that needs to be respected and not played with'. But they enjoy it so much and they're actually very careful with it. And honestly, I get way more enjoyment out of it by watching them enjoy it so much rather than just seeing it sit there so nice and neat. Plus~ let's be honest~ I'm pretty sure most of my stuff has been purchased at the Dollar General or Dollar Tree. We're not talking about fine collector item pieces here.

The kids and I put up our Christmas tree last week and we pulled out all the village stuff. By the time we got around to the village Levi was napping so it worked out nice. The girls set everything up exactly as they wanted and even honored Mommy's one request to put the manger in the middle. Levi got up from his nap while I was making dinner and he was playing nicely with the girls. Sierra was in the dining room with the little ones and I could hear them all so I felt okay to hurry along with dinner. Later, after all the craziness of dinner production time, I noticed that the village seemed strange from a distance. As I got closer I gasped in horror as I realized that the village had been hit by a tornado! A tornado named Levi! It was a complete wreck~ there was a dump truck right in the middle of town (I'm not sure if it was there for destruction or rebuild, but it was there none the less), a Christmas tree was on the manger roof, the angels had fallen from grace and were face down in the destruction -except for one that was placed neatly in the manger and has been left there just for Levi- Joseph was trying to get into the toystore, Mary was on the ice pond, Wise Men face down in the sleigh, and Baby Jesus was nowhere to be found. AMBER ALERT: BABY JESUS IS MISSING! I put everyone on the case. Sierra recovered Baby Jesus rather quickly but it was still quite the scare. I also found a camera on the scene, probably dropped by the insurance agent.

It's nice to see Levi enjoy the village as much as the girls but he's not as gentle as the girls. Maybe he thinks the Wise Men are 'action figures'. They sure have been flying around like super heroes lately. I had to get my carolers out of the garbage a few days ago. I'm very concerned for the village this year. Maybe I should just start collecting a 'mommy only set'. At least it's a happy village.