Nativity's Rescue!

We like our little wooden Nativity set as part of our outside Christmas decor. We bought and assembled it a couple of years ago as part of Diane's Nativity collection, and to let neighbors know that Mormons are indeed Christians. We are so glad we could rescue it and put it next to the house as you see in this sort of blurry picture here. (We like how you can see our tree through the glass storm door this year.) Now, the rescue story began last week:
First, we had this beautiful morning after the BIG SNOW (another blog post for that story). This is the view from our front door. The Nativity had been positioned between the tree and bush on the little mound there. We thought it was the perfect spot for it. But the Nativity was knocked over by the wind and buried under all that snow just like last year, in spite of Bill's great repairing job and tethering it with 6 strong tent stakes.

So, Bill got busy making a path from the front door, using both snowblower and shovel. HoneyBear supervised from her shady spot on the icy driveway. (Brrrr!) By this time, the snowplows had also been down our street a couple of times, so Bill shoveled more snow away from the mailbox. (The mail-lady really appreciates Bill's good job of doing that.)

Then Diane was able to make her way to begin the excavation process. (Yes, the house shadow on the snow really does look blue like that---isn't that cool? Ice blue!)

The broom helped---we didn't want it to get any more damaged than it was. All the parts were found except 2 tent stakes and a couple of small chunks of wood. We won't worry about those till Spring.

HoneyBear liked sitting in the hole where the Nativity used to be.

So, the repair process takes a few days... (The candle is to heat the sharp thing to poke holes into the plastic base to wire everything into.) Surprisingly, most of the glitter we had sprinkled into the paint was still there.

We know better than to set it up in the middle of the mound again! Maybe by next year we will find something more attractive to wire it to, to keep it off the ground, but the old sawhorses will do for now. Bales of hay, maybe?

As the skies darkened, Bill got the wiring arranged, and repaired the other lights that had had a problem since all the snow and ice, and ...Ta-daaa!

Our poor little offering of wood and paint and glitter and wire shines
again!!!

Now, we also wanted to get the brightly colored lights up around the roof edge, but after all of this, we just haven't been able to. (Hmmm, any sons/sons-in-law have a weekend free?) But if they don't get up this year its OK, cuz at least we get to bear our testimonies of our Savior's birth to all passers-by through our little rescued Nativity. Life is good.