Keeping Baby Warm

by Lynda H. Laughlin

It was an inexpensive dime-store Nativity set,

and he was only three years old. His back was

toward me, but I could see that his chubby little

hands were busily working on something at the

old table.

"What are you doing?" I asked him impatiently,

annoyed at him for touching the decorations after

he had been told not to.

As I started toward the scene of his latest

mischief, he turned toward me with wide blue

eyes filling and a single tear starting down his

cherubic cheek. Then I saw it. A carefully folded

tissue had been tenderly placed over the small

ceramic infant.

"Baby Jesus was cold, Mommy," he whispered.

Ten years have passed, and the tiny Nativity has

been replaced by a much larger one. But this

year, as every year, I found a carefully folded

tissue covering the baby Jesus. I think I know

who did it, and I hope he never stops.