In His Mother’s Arms
By Susan Law Corpany

The year was 1977.  I was 22, single, sharing an apartment with a friend and working at a bank in Salt Lake City. 

Because I am a right-brained person, any time in my life I have had to regularly accomplish organized left-brain functions, such as my work in the loan department, I have sought a creative outlet.  I can’t remember exactly how I got started on the pompom animals.  It was one of many in a long line of arts and crafts phases.  I would make the animals and take them into the bank and show my female co-workers.  Chickens, monkeys, and a mama possum with several baby possums hanging from her pipe cleaner tail were among my creations.  Soon I was taking requests and before long many of the desks at Tracy Collins Bank were graced by my works of art. 

In the fall of that year I opened a letter from my mother to find several pages that had been torn from an issue of Woman’s Day magazine — directions for a pompom nativity scene.  (A good mother, though far away, is always in tune and up on the lives of her children.)  It looked complicated, but I was not going to back down from the challenge. 

Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus

Undaunted I went to the craft store and loaded up on all the supplies — pompoms, glue, felt, wire, pipe cleaners, glitter and braid, exhausting my discretional spending money for the month and a good chunk of my grocery money.  Little by little it began to come together — a couple of shepherds, some sheep, three wise men, a camel.  (Originally I had planned to make three camels, but after completing one I decided that the other two could be out back grazing.)  

All the eyes I had were too big for Baby Jesus, so I carefully attached two pieces of black glitter with a pair of tweezers.  I have always felt that my Joseph appears to be looking heavenward, I guess because of the way I glued his eyes on.  Or maybe he did it himself.

A few days before Christmas, I proudly set the finished product out on my desk for my co-workers to admire.  Among those present was my boss, Dale, who wasn’t one of my regular admirers.  He looked it over, calculating the time that had been spent, the myriad hours I must have sat at the kitchen table gluing beards onto shepherds and sequins onto the robes of wise men.  He comment said it all.  “Susan, I thought you had a boyfriend.”  Obviously this was the work of a desperately lonely person.

Two shepherds and some sheep

I did have a serious boyfriend, but he didn’t seem to take my pompom animals very seriously, if you can imagine.  While I was dating him, I ran into Paul, a fellow I’d gone on one date with six years previously.  One day he had come over to my apartment while I was making pompom chickens.  It was actually a turning point in my “battle of the boyfriends.”  Waiting for some sarcastic comment or an offer to take me away from my mindless pursuit, he said enthusiastically, “Can I help?” 

As we sat at the table gluing beaks and googly eyes onto miniature chickens, I remember thinking, If I have met a man who likes to make pompom animals, I should probably marry him.  It wasn’t quite that simple, of course, but a couple of years later that’s exactly what I did.

I never considered making pompom creatures a unique talent until I was recruited to teach a class of sisters how to make their own pompom nativity scene.  A handful of foolish sisters had signed up.  Our fearless leader, Connie, said it all.  In fact, she stood up on a chair and held high one of her wise men.  “I want you all to know that just because you are Relief Society president doesn’t mean your house is always clean or that your children are always well-behaved and it doesn’t mean that you can glue felt and pompoms together and have it look like a wise man instead of a wino.” 

The three wise men in their tent

I always appreciated her for being willing to do that, to help us all feel better about our shortcomings and struggles. 

After the meeting I took her shoebox of pompoms and her “wino” and told her the problem was his beard and I knew how to fix it.  I told her I knew she was incredibly busy with her calling and as an act of service I was going to finish her nativity scene for her.  She thanked me and said not to rush and try to get it done in time for Christmas.  I took her at her word on that and filed it away with my other unfinished projects.  As a result, Connie’s nativity scene sat in my procrastination pile for eight years. 

Every time I moved and rediscovered that shoebox, it came to the top of my guilt pile, and I considered just tossing it, sure she had long since forgotten my promise to finish it for her.   I had given away or thrown away numerous other half-finished masterpieces, but I knew I could never throw Connie’s pompoms out.  She had been my Young Women president when I was growing up.  We had all loved her.  She had been old enough to be a leader but young enough to tell us stories of working in the office at school and writing out fake passes to get her boyfriend out of class so they could cut classes together.  I had been her favorite babysitter.  She had been the one I had gone to talk to when my heart got broken, several times. 

When I married and moved back into the ward where I had grown up, she had been my Relief Society president — the one I had called to drive me to the hospital after Paul’s accident when my heart broke for real.  Sometimes a Relief Society president is called, not because she has a clean house and perfect children, but because she is the person who is best going to be able to minister to a particular need of someone in her flock, to give advice that will be listened to because it is given in love. 

“I’ve heard several people offering for you and the baby to come stay with them for a time.  Don’t try to escape, Susan.  Sooner or later you will have to go home and face the fact that he is not there.”  She wasn’t writing out any more passes to skip class, no matter how difficult the subject matter.  I have always been grateful to the Lord for his tender mercy in placing Connie in my life when I needed her.  No, I could not throw out Connie’s pompoms. 

Finally one year, I finished it.  It was a year of financial hardship.  In search of a Christmas service project, short of signing up to be the recipient of one, I remembered the shoebox full of pompoms and dug it out of the garage.  It was something I could do without any financial outlay, with the exception of a little postage. 

With love, I crafted the shepherds and Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.  I made lame sheep walk by giving them pipe cleaner legs and turned a wino into a wise man.  As I struggled with yet another camel, I remembered all that Connie had done for me, and carried on.  Neither of us lived in Utah anymore, so I mailed it from Florida to Wyoming, timing it to arrive on Christmas Eve, imagining her surprise, and probably a few tears.  I hope she thinks of me when she puts it out.  It was a small way to tell her what a blessing she had been in my life. 

>Over the years I have added accessories to my nativity scene.  I first bought the cheap no-frills starter manger, and then upgraded a few years later to the more deluxe model.  I have added a tent for the wise men’s encampment.  There are crates of chickens, lanterns, a small table and a bale of hay. 

For nearly thirty years the nativity has found a place of honor in my home during the Christmas season.  Until last year, it was completely intact, but the donkey has mysteriously come up missing.  None of the cats are talking.  From now on he will have to be out back grazing with the other two camels.  He never could stand up very well.  He looked like he was bowing, so I always placed him in front of the Christ child, kneeling in worship, either that or I would have him drinking out of the trough.  Sometimes we just have to work into our lives the imperfections and challenges that aren’t likely to go away.

It became especially challenging for me once I became a mother to convince my young son that my nativity was not a set of “action figures” to be played with.  Every morning I would remove the donkey from riding the camel, take the sheep off the roof, and put Joseph back beside Mary, watching over the baby Jesus. 

I would sit down with a little boy on my lap and try my best to explain to him that these weren’t playthings, but no matter how many toys I got out to try and distract him, he could not resist the lure of the nativity scene.  I never saw him touch it.  He understood enough to do his playing when I was not watching, but he hadn’t figured out yet that if there were only two of us in the house, he was not innocent until proven guilty.  He had tried once to finger me for one of his misdeeds.  As I had come across the scene of the crime, I heard a little voice ask, in an effort to deflect blame, “What have you done, Mom?”  It didn’t work, but you can’t blame a kid for trying.

Every morning it was the same scenario, different players.  Reposition the wise men, who were drinking out of the trough beside the donkey.  Take the baby sheep out of the manger and put Baby Jesus back.  Pick Mary up from her nap on the stable floor.  Talk to Scotty. 

Finally one morning I lost my temper.  I was about to speak sharply to my little boy, reminding him of the many many times Mommy had asked him to please not play with her nativity scene.  As usual, things were rearranged and out of place and my patience had run out.  “Yea, and there came from afar following the star, come to worship the newborn king, three Lego men and a Fisher Price elephant.” 

About to scold, I noticed that Baby Jesus had been picked up and placed in his mother’s arms.  My anger melted away at that sight.  I carefully got the nativity scene down off the piano and we “played” with it together, talking about each character and who they were and what they had done so long ago. 

I realized then that I had been going about it all wrong.  Instead of trying to get him to care about my “house beautiful” arrangement, I needed to impart to him my reverence for this representation of the tiny little Savior and the scene of his birth.  Miraculously, love seemed to work where all my scolding had failed.  Holding my little boy, I marveled at how effective the lessons Jesus taught and yet often so difficult for us to grasp in their simplicity.

Scott has long since grown up and left home.  When I set up my nativity set now it stays just the way I arrange it — right from the pages of Woman’s Day.   

Except for one thing.  Every once in a while I pick up Baby Jesus and put Him in His mother’s arms.