“Mary gave birth to her baby in a stable and wrapped in in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger.” Although the stable would have been a bit smelly and not very clean, I’m sure Joseph and Mary did their best to make the place as cosy as possible for their new baby. They would both have looked after the baby well. And they had all those strange people they did not know visiting them, first the shepherds, then the three wise men.
Swaddling clothes or swaddling bands as they were sometimes called were long strips of cloth which where tied around babies. This stopped them from kicking out. This was helpful as often the child was carried on its mother back. Small children were often strapped to their mother’s back as there were no prams or baby-buggys in those days.
Doctors today would say that swaddling clothes were not very good for babies as its good to let them kick.
A manger is a rack which is usually fixed to a wall or on a table which contains straw for animals to eat. It keeps the food clean. Mary and Joseph hadn’t anywhere else to place the child, they couldn’t bring the baby’s cot all the way from Nazareth with them.
Working it Out
You have done enough over the last 24 days. Today is a holiday!
Just sing a few carols, listen to the words and see how many you understand this year you might not have understood last year. Oh yes, and you might like to look at the list of things you made on day one of advent that you didn’t understand, do you understand them now?
