Where have the wisemen gone?

I should have known when she was
asking where the wisemen had gone
that she was referring to this set.
I often see her playing with it.

When Alice came downstairs today, she asked me where the wisemen had gone?

I asked her what she meant.

She said, “You know the wisemen from the Orient.”

I asked her if she were referring to the nativity set of nesting dolls that I keep on the bottom ledge of the china cabinet all year long.

She said no, she wanted the big ones. It took me until the afternoon to figure out she was talking about a large porcelain Nativity set.

I identify it as the one I got at Safeway when it was 90% off.

I would have known more what it was by that description.

Only I would buy a set where the figures are 15 inches high and you crowd them together on a small mahogany platform where they don’t have an inch to breath. I think I was curious that she identifies what is going on there as the 3 wisemen being important. She even sang me a few strains from “We Three Kings of Orient Are”, to refresh my memory in case I had forgotten who the wisemen are.

Next year I will try to make Mary and Joseph the more important pieces in that set for her.  Or maybe not.  This story is a lot of people's story.

Arta