Crèches & Canned Food.

While serving in Quèbec City at Christmastime (2005) my mission companion and I visited a crèches display at the public library.  I loved seeing the various nativity scenes from around the world.  One of my favorite depiction was Inuit with polar bears.  Fast forward 5 years to St. Louis when we attended a similar event put on at the LDS (Frontenac) church.  It was an amazing event with live music performed by local youth and choirs, children craft centers, time period costumes with pictures and all.  At some point along the way I dreamed of collecting crèches and welcoming friends and neighbors into our home to start off the Christmas season in a Christ-like way.  Now that we're finally in a home I decided that this year would be the year to begin.  Dad supported my various projects and ambitions, several ward members lent me their nativity scenes, then the night of the event came.  I told myself to expect no one and was pleased when we had over a dozen adults and more than a handful of children and youth attend.  We had a mix of colleagues, ward members and even a wonderful woman, Becky, from the area that Uncle Matt had met en route to Normal.  She played her flute as Sister Broderick played the piano and Sister Oliphant played the cello.  Their beautiful music was one of the highlights of the evening for me!  The sister missionaries (Sisters Oliphant and Allen) and I also sang a simple, but sweet song entitled, "Mary & Elizabeth."  Other than our dining room display of crèches and quotes, we served refreshments in the kitchen (some people even brought more to share), and had non-breakable nativities and books for the children in the basement.  We ended up collecting a whole box of food items, which we were able to donate to a local food pantry.  It turned out to be a wonderful, uplifting evening.  I hope to hold a similar event next year and maybe it will become an annual tradition.