The Three Kings always needed directions

By Alfred P. Doblin

When I was little, my mother told me about the Christmas star, the one that guided The Three Kings to Bethlehem. I didn’t question the accuracy of the story. I was a child, and children accept the stories told to them by their parents as true until one day they do not.

There is no set moment when that happens, but thinking back, it probably occurs at the point that Santa becomes suspect.

We had a nativity set that went under our Christmas tree. It was made of plaster of Paris, or something similar. The pieces were small and chipped. St. Joseph looked more like St. Francis, with a white spot on the back of his head.

The sheep were covered in flocking, and stray pieces of straw lined the infant’s crib. There was no manger or building; there was nothing elegant about this nativity. My mom had purchased it sometime in the 1940s, I believe, but it was part of our Christmas tradition. It was my job to place all the pieces under the tree.

The Three Kings had to be put as far back as I could reach, and then, starting on Christmas, I would move them ever-so slowly toward Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, so the kings arrived at Jesus on January 6th, a day that used to be known as Epiphany, before being coopted by political forces much removed from the message of Christmas. The Magi have been replaced by the MAGA, who had a different “come to Jesus” moment.

The nativity set was stored in a non-descript cardboard box, the relic of some shipment of something long forgotten, and each piece was wrapped in white tissue paper. Putting it away was as significant as taking it out.

And so, it went for years and years. Many epiphanies came to pass. Santa became suspect, as did many other truths. My parents aged poorly and moved eventually into a nursing home, my mom with advanced dementia, unable to even speak by the last years of her life. The nativity set disappeared. Neither my sister nor I knew what happened, aside that many things “disappeared” as our parents’ health faltered in various assisted-living facilities, and we came to accept that the set was gone.

A few years after my parents had both passed, my sister and I finally went through the last of assorted boxes of towels, linens, and such that had been in storage in Florida, where my parents had died, and finally shipped to my sister’s home, then in New Jersey. The boxes had sat in her garage, much like the Ark of the Covenant at the close of the first Indianna Jones film.

I was working my way through a carton of towels and there it was – the cardboard box with my mom’s writing on it. Inside, waiting to be unwrapped was Jesus, Mary, Joseph with the bald spot, the angels, shepherds, animals, and the three kings – one partially broken.

I teared up much as I did this week seeing Amahl and the Night Visitors presented at Lincoln Center in a beautiful, simple production dominated by a vast starlit night sky.

The nativity set held a deeper meaning to me than to my sister and she, like The Three Kings, wisely understood that, and let me take it home.

I glued the fractured king back together, and I taped the aging cardboard of the crib, but the overall effect had not been diminished by age.

I put it under my tree still, each year, bringing out the cardboard box with my mom’s handwriting on the sides, and eagerly taking out each piece wrapped in the tissue and pieces of paper towels that mom had last wrapped them in.

Yes, pieces of paper towels – she must have had some limited awareness the last time she went through the packing process in Florida, but not quite the same level of concern she would have had five or six years earlier.

I have not replaced the paper towels, although I take fastidiousness to high levels. It is a connection to her – those pieces of paper towels. And it takes me back to my youth, to a different time in my journey. And yes, we, like The Three Kings, are on a journey in search of the peace and blessings of a savior.

We may call it or him something else, but we start at the back of the tree, and then keep scanning the sky for direction. As we age, we stop looking up and assume we can find it ourselves. Today, little kids may be told there is an app for that, like those Santa finders on Christmas Eve.

I don’t believe in apps. And I don’t believe we get anywhere solely by ourselves. I teared-up at the end of Amahl, as a bright star flew across the night star. Myth is faith without belief. Faith is belief without proof.

Now, in my late 60s, it is harder placing those three kings toward the back of the tree – either my tree is bigger than the one of my youth or my mobility is more limited. But I do it because, like the pieces of paper towels that still wrap the nativity set, it connects me to my mom, and to Christmases long past.

Santa may still be suspect. January 6th is no longer first spoken as a day of joy, at least in many parts of America. But The Three Kings, splotched by glued, and Jesus, Mary, and St. Joseph with his chipped scalp, remain part of my Christmas.

I will move the kings slowly to their destination; they always needed guidance. And I will scan the night sky for a star that does not need to be seen to be believed.

Until next time, Alfred with P