Away in a manger…

So, Waylon bought this ceramic Nativity Scene for me from Kirkland’s years ago when I saw it and loved it (yes, I realize that Mary was probably not blonde and the skin tones are not racially correct but nonetheless…):

It’s always been stableless. Until this Christmas! My mama, thrift store shopper extraordinaire and general repurposer found this ho-made stable for $2 and told me about it. I went by and snatched it up.

 

Yes, that is Pine tree bark as the roofing material. We were soon to discover that the Pine tree bark was applied with ROOFING ADHESIVE which is basically the stickiest and hardest drying glue on Earth. So of course, the bark had to go and the glue had to go as much as it would. I had plans on doing some kind of reed roof in short sections if I couldn’t get the roof flat again. (Notice I had the plans to do this myself. All on my own.)

So I got outside and started hacking away. (That is Buddy the Boston Terrier in the background waiting patiently on me as I was hacking and playing catch-the-beach-ball at the same time with him.)

So then, Diddy came to survey the progress and after giving me a better “hacker” (it was a thicker putty knife which helped get that glue off), he decided he would take over the reconstruction because there were some loose nails and a whole side of the rails that weren’t attached. Well.

He found out the wood the rails were built from is hard as a brick.

Yes, that is the drill bit stuck in the wood on the bottom and that screw above it has it’s head stripped so it will go no further into the wood. I didn’t do any of this. Diddy did. Then the cat got involved.

“I cannot hold a hammer but I can look at you disdainfully from the corner of my eye while you make racket. And I will.”

It eventually got fixed and here he came with his sander. “Here, you hold this and do that and…” I quickly figured out that I had been busted from foreman to go-fer. He had effort invested in this and was going to finish it now. He sanded the roof down after we got as far as we could hacking that dried roofing adhesive off.

Then I took over again and painted it.

This is about 5 different colors mixed together because I don’t believe in a stable being one color. Wood is not one color. There are dark spots and light spots and streaks on purpose.

While it was busy drying, I then decided I needed hay. Well, Uncle Cecil has hay in his barn. So, he was roped into the project too.

Lots of hay. I don’t need this much.

Then I spoke to the chickens.

Then a head of cabbage was pilfered from Uncle Cecil’s garden (and HIS cat got involved. From left to right: Socks, Diddy, Uncle Cecil).

Then a sunset happened.

I had planned to find tiny, battery operated LED’s and perhaps barn lanterns (?!?) to put in the stable but have not been able to find those yet. Still looking but meanwhile, the person who built it had taken the time to drill a hole for a bulb in the highest pitch of the back wall. Thank you, Pine Tree Bark Person. My mama, who has anything anybody could possibly ever need, had picked up a bulb with a four foot cord at an After Christmas Sale one year, still in the package, and she contributed it to The Cause.

After it dried, I was anxious to install it in it’s proper place at the office so we took another trip to take it up there (and get more stuff to make Melissa’s Crack-a-mole cause I’d made a double batch that very morning and we’d already KILT it. If you want the recipe for it, leave me a comment and let me know. It really is crack, though, so beware.) So, here it is with the figures and the hay at my office.

YAY!! I added a glittery star hanging from the ceiling above it that you can’t see in the shot above. Not bad for redneck engineering and community involvement. Merry Christmas!