When Nativity Scenes Go Wrong

Cavalcade of Bad Nativities

There's so many horrible Christmas decorations out there that none of these surprised me (okay, maybe the rubber ducky Jesus, but not much), but I give the author full credit for having found photographic proof that there is indeed something worse than a Precious Moments Nativity--namely, a Precious Moments knockoff Nativity where all the figurines wear lipliner that looks like bad 60s eyeshadow. God forbid those people should, like the Precious Moments people, put out an illustrated Bible.

In case it's not obvious, I despise the Precious Moments things; I loathe, despise, abhor and have theological problems with the Precious Moments nativities; and I harbor grave doubts about any woman--and it's always a woman--who would buy Precious Moments crap. (The latter's neither here nor there, though; I could wonder aloud about people who pay good money for Thomas Kinkade's creepy, creepy pictures, too, but we're on the nativities now, anyway.) You notice the Precious Moments people mostly make Nativities. The incarnation of God in a human--i.e., crying, pooping, prone to cuts and sores--form is just a ripe oppurtunity for cutesey-ification, for these people. And all those other funs stories from the Bible go down so much better when depicted as happening to teardrop-headed kids with serious pastel fixations. Noah, the affliction of Job, the whole Sodom and Gomorrah thing? Hey, they were all Precious Moments moments! The one thing I have yet to see, thank God and knock wood, is a Precious Moments Crucifixion.

I have to admit, though, that a crucified Precious Moments kid is something I could let my gaze linger on with pleasure, even as I shuddered in horror at the ghastliness of it all and wondered if there was any point in stockpiling food and weapons when I'd just seen one of the signs of the Apocalypse.