Of punch-out dolls and Christmas wonder

My mother sent my daugher an unusual Advent calendar this year. Instead of the usual 24 windows revealing various Dickensian scenes, it's a cardboard stable with 24 little punch-out paper dolls that gradually build a nativity scene. Each day, we punch out and add a Wise Man, or a cow, or a shepherd to the scene. And each day, we use the occasion to talk a bit more about the story of the Baby Jesus.

My daughter is nearly three, so this is the first year she can really begin to understand the rather complicated story of Christmas. While it's been a pleasure to teach it to her in this way, the real pleasure and surprise has been the childish wonder she has given back to me in return.
To understand what I'm talking about, you have to visualize how one of these daily storytelling sessions actually occurs. December 10th's character was a rooster. It was breakfast time, and with Banana Bread flavored oatmeal still smeared all over her chin, she asked if we could "do number 10." I pulled out the card of dolls, and as we carefuly punched out the rooster, I attempted to explain the importance of said rooster in the Nativity.

This was joy numer one.

It turns out, one can actually come up with quite a few significant Christian rooster explanations. It represents Christ's humble beginnings. It shows the infant's dependence on charity, just as a rooster depends on the farmer for its support. It helps you visualize the animal warmth that surrounded Jesus in his early hours. It helps you remember what it must have smelled, sounded and felt like to Mary to deliver her baby in a barn. It's a token of the incredible diversity of life God put on earth. It ultimately forces you to accept that the Christmas story is about a new kind of king and a new kind of kingdom.

All of this from a rooster (or the cow on day 8, or the chicken on day 11....)

Joy number two came from the way my daughter heard the story. Go back and read the paragraph of explanations again, mentally interrupting each sentence with a tiny, curly-headed, "Roosters say Cock-a-doodle-doo!!!!" And after each sentence, imagine having to answer, "Why?" in a devolution of explanations that goes at least three iterations deep.

The silliness and gutteral enthusiasm of the rooster sounds, combined with the urgent questioning of why, why, why the Christmas story? why my Catholic belief in this messiah and his meaning? why this desire to pass that belief on to my child, even at such a young age? returned me to my own enthusiasm. It forced me to step back from the complications of life, and education, fear and doubt, to embrace the wonder of the story, and the simple but beautiful meaning of a boy savior born in a barn with a rooster to help keep him warm.

Who would have thought a punch-out card could help you regain your innocence?