A hippo was at the manger…
By By Leada Gore, Editor
There’s a manger scene hanging on my refrigerator. I didn’t know it was a manger scene when I first saw it, but after Sutton privided interpretation, I quickly identified Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, wisemen and shepherds. There are some animals, too, but we will get to that later.
Sutton made the picture at her Mother’s Day Out class. It’s made with her fingerprints, each person a different color, then small faces drawn on each round circle. As she explained it to me, Sutton said the following:
She went on to tell me that the pink circle was “Baby Jesus’ mommy” and the blue one was “Baby Jesus’ daddy.” I asked her about the other circles – the ones I later identified as Wise Men and shepherds, but she said “I dunno,” when asked their identities.
And the animals? That’s when things got interesting.
There were some light gray circles that I could tell were sheep. There were some brown circles that Sutton said were cows. Then, there was another orange circle that Sutton said was a giraffe. It had a round body and a long neck, so I could see the giraffe idea. However, as I don’t think there were giraffes in Bethlehem, I’m guessing that was supposed to be a camel.
Sutton pointed to another brown circle and said it was a bear. Another red circle was a bird, she said. A gray one was a hippo. A yellow one was Sponge Bob. Coincidentally, these animals can all be found in her favorite book and she’s obsessed with the cartoon character Sponge Bob, so I guess that’s where all these descriptions came from.
At the top of the drawing are the words, “Upon to Us a Child is Given.” (Note: I realize this is supposed to say “Unto us…” However, as this manger scene also has hippos, I won’t get picky with the wording.)
She smiled. I did, too.
Sure, she may not have things historically correct and no, there were no hippos at the manger but I think she’s got the most important lesson down pat.
