Fix'n the Nativity!

Merry Christmas everyone! And Christmas isn’t far off since it’s only: 5 little days away! This is my last post before Christmas, so I’m going to make this one as Christmassy as possible! Let’s get jingling!

I’d say at this festive time of year, we break out some more dino-Christmas music! I hope you’re enjoying these songs as much as I am! I’m having a blast! Alright, let’s start with this one: “Theropods ‘round the Christmas Tree”. Now unlike the songs from last week and the week before, which are from a book called, “The Dinosaurs’ Night Before Christmas”, this song I wrote myself. I hope you like it! Let’s sing:

Theropods ‘round the Christmas Tree (sung to Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree)

Chorus:

Ther’pods gather ‘round, the Christmas tree

At the Christmas dino-pop.

Dinner bells rung everywhere you see

Every raptor tries to stop.

Ther’pods gather ‘round, the Christmas tree

Come hungry this holiday.

Later we’ll have to Triceratops pie and ye do some fair hunt-in!

Tyrann’saurus will get a hungry, hungry feeling when he hears,

Voices roaring bring dinner out quick,

Before T. rex gets impatiently angry!

Ther’pods gather ‘round, the Christmas tree

Come hungry this holiday.

The Oviraptors are dancing merrily

In that ancient pre-flood fashioned way!

Tyrann’saurus will get a hungry, hungry feeling when he hears,

Voices roaring bring dinner out quick,

Before T. rex gets impatiently angry!

Ther’pods gather ‘round, the Christmas tree

Come hungry this holiday.

The Oviraptors are dancing merrily

In that ancient pre-flood fashioned way!

I don’t know about you, but I kind of like that song. It has a nice ring to it (if I do say so myself!). There is another song to sing, but this time, I’ll save it till we are at the end of this post.

We finally got around to the serious decorating this year! My sister, Halle, my Mom and I just decorated what most people would call a “Christmas tree”. Well, my Mom can have some pretty strange ideas, and while we plan to decorate an actual tree this year, Mom helped us decorate this:

Yes, that is a ladder. We call it the “Christmas ladder”. When we get our tree, Mom wanted to decorate it with Christmas balls and other stuff that “didn’t flow with our other ornaments.” So that’s how we got to a Christmas ladder. How weird (but cool) is that!?! Here are some close ups of the stuff on the ladder:

We didn’t have room for other ornaments that I like, so here are some other favorite ornaments:

And here are some pictures from the window scene. I already showed a few on this site, but these are different because I took them at night when the lights are shining. So here they are for you to enjoy:

So what are YOU doing for Christmas? Please, post what you’re doing as a comment!

The true meaning of Christmas isn’t about getting stuff, or about Santa Claus, or about family and definitely not about eating! Those things aren’t bad, but they’re just the icing on the cake. The true meaning of Christmas is really about Jesus’s humble entrance into the world as a tiny baby. We all know the typical nativity story told in Sunday Schools and other church related events all around the world: “Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem to register in a census and while traveling, Mary’s Child was almost ready to be born. After they reached Bethlehem, Mary’s Child was ready to be born but the nasty innkeeper turned them away because there wasn’t any room in his (or her) inn. The only place available was a small stable. So she and Joseph went there and Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ. Then shepherds from the fields, who had been told by angels of the Child’s birth, came to the stable to see the Baby. They were followed by three kings from the east who had followed a star and they gave gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus.” That is the typical story that people know around the world.

But you know, it’s been almost 2,000 years since the nativity took place, and since then, a lot of the story has been changed to make it “cuter”. The only 100% accurate account is found in the Bible. So let’s take a quiz to see how much you really know about the nativity:

• What did the stable look like?
• What time of year was the Nativity?
• What animal did Mary ride to Bethlehem?
• How many kings were there?
• What animal did the wise men ride?
• How old was Jesus when the wise men visited him?

Now, I want you to read Luke 2:1-20. Then read Matthew 2:1-18 and take the quiz again. Did you answers change any?

As you can see, much of the story has been changed over the years. So how much of this story really happened? Let’s delve into history to find out!

The scene was set 2,000 years ago, in Nazareth. A young teenage girl named Mary was expected to be married to an older man named Joseph. Back at the time, it was customary for a girl her age to be married to an older man, maybe in his 20’s. The Bible doesn’t say how old she was, but it’s possible she was anywhere between the ages of 16 to as low as 13. Anyway, she was minding her own business when suddenly, an angel named Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she was going to have a Baby. The Baby, who would be named Jesus, was to come thanks to the Holy Spirit (because she wasn’t married to Joseph yet). Now there are critics who would say it’s impossible for a virgin to give birth, but that’s not true. (I could go into this lengthy topic, but I’d like to not do that today!) Mary was willing to take on the responsibility. Her husband-to-be, Joseph, was going to dismiss her quietly when he found out she was pregnant, until an angel told him that it was ok to go marry Mary because her Child was coming because of the Holy Spirit.

Not long after that, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all of the Roman world should be taxed. So that meant literally everyone, including Mary and Joseph, and to leave for Bethlehem because they had to pay the tax in Joseph’s home town, the town of David. Now, the Bible doesn’t say what Mary rode to Bethlehem, does it? I’m saying it’s wrong to think she could have ridden a donkey. It is possible, but I am merely saying we simply don’t know for sure if Mary rode anything at all to Bethlehem. Considering she was pregnant, it would make a lot of sense!

After they reached Bethlehem, Mary’s Child was ready to be born. The Bible doesn’t say exactly when she gave birth – whether it was as soon as they reached Bethlehem or if it was a little while after they got there. Like I said with the donkey thing, it isn’t wrong to think she could have given birth as soon as they got there, but we don’t know for sure. As the Bible says, there was no room in the inn for Mary and Joseph so Mary had to give birth in a small stable. Many stables in Bible Times were actually more like caves, kind of like what was seen in the movie Nativity Story. Perhaps though, one of the more likely places Jesus was born in was at one of Joseph's relations' houses in the area where the animals are kept. So Mary gave birth to Jesus and placed Him in a manger. Why was He born like this?

You might wonder why Jesus was born in this way. After all, He was really God in flesh! Well, have you ever heard of Jesus being called the Lamb of God? When ewes are pregnant, shepherds at Jesus’ time pulled the lamb out and wrapped it in cloths and laid it in a manger to calm it down (sound familiar?). Now you know why He was born this way!

Another familiar part of the story would be the shepherds who were out in their fields with their sheep at night when angels came upon them to tell them of the Savior’s birth. A lot of people think that since Christmas as we know it is in December, the first Christmas must also have been in December. But think about it: even in the Holy Lands it can get quite cold at night where the shepherds were in the winter time. Plus it was night time, so it would have been pretty cold had the Nativity taken place in winter! Many Biblical scholars instead believe it more likely that the Nativity took place in the spring, a much better time for the shepherds to be out with their sheep!

At last, we’ve reached the part in the story where the wise men enter. Now, a lot of stories will tell you that three kings visited baby Jesus with the shepherds. But as you’ll recall, the Bible doesn’t mention kings, it mentions wise men. So how on earth do people think that they were kings? This might come from another verse in the Bible, Daniel 9:24-26 (see this link). So could they have been kings? Possibly, but it is more likely they were wise scholars who had tracked down a star moving about in the sky to find Jesus. Now, in just about every picture, movie, Christmas play and book with the Nativity in it, you will see the stable with Mary and Joseph standing (or sitting) next to the Child, the shepherds watching the Baby, and the Wise Men either watching or giving their gifts. But let’s take a closer look at Matthew 2: 1-15. Hmm, it said that they visited Jesus in the house with His mother Mary. Doesn’t say a thing about shepherds or the stable, does it? The wise men visited Jesus when he was probably one or two years old. Not the newborn that we commonly see in picture books about Christmas.

Did you notice how many wise men the Bible says visited? It doesn’t, does it? Perhaps it was three, but it could have been four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, 20, 50, 90 . . . ok, maybe I went a little over the top, but we simply don’t know how many wise men there were. People just assume it was three because three gifts were given. Which would make some sense, unless some wise men gave the same gifts. We just don’t know.

Sorry, wise men! You guys need to turn back around and come back to visit Baby Jesus in another year or two!

Wow! Popular culture really has the Nativity story all wrong doesn’t it! Now we know the truth about the Nativity. Even though the stuff we just learned might be a shock to some, it does teach us something: when we hear something about scripture, no matter who it’s coming from, we should literally check the scriptures to see if what is being said is true and not just listen to it. Because it could be wrong!

Ok, before we get to our last song, I figured we could watch our next face-off! “Tyrannosaurus vs. Spinosaurus”. But first, let’s learn a thing or two about each creature (for info on T. rex, please visit this post).

Spinosaurus

While normally T. rex gets this title, Spinosaurus really is, and was the biggest meat-eating dinosaur that ever walking the planet. It was 16 feet longer than the average T. rex at 59 feet long and weighed up to 10 tons! Its arms were longer too: they were eight feet long and bore terrible nine-inch claws. These were the main weapons of Spinosaurus, contrary to T. rex. You probably already noticed how Spinosaurus got its name: that elaborate sail. The sail stood six feet tall and was made up of the backbones. What was the sail used for? Scientists aren’t sure, but it might be used as a way to stay cool, similar to the ears of an elephant. Or maybe it was used to attract a mate. We just don’t know. While T. rex specialized in hunting other dinosaurs, Spinosaurus specialized in a peculiar diet: fish! This may seem like a weird diet for such a large creature, but the fish Spinosaurus hunted were big – over 10 feet long! In real life, Spinosaurus and T. rex could never face-off because they lived on different continents: Spinosaurus in Africa and T. rex in North America. So today this is just speculation to who might win if out of a bizarre set of circumstances met and fought.

Now, let’s see who’s the real “King of the Tyrant Lizards”! Who will win:

That was some face-off! As you just learned, this episode is the second to last one of this series. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did making it. But why stop here? I actually have finished the script for another stop-motion series that I believe is just as good, if not better than the Animal Face-Off. Below you will see a teaser trailer for the new series. Don’t judge how the series will be by this trailer though, because the only purpose of this is so that you get the feel of what the series might be like when it’s finished. So please enjoy:

I know very well that it's not Easter Time, but we are considering the Easter play I wrote a couple of years back, called "Worthy is the Lamb". The new title is "The King on a Cross", after the title of my first book. Even though it's December, this is the perfect time to start looking over the script and to plan a casting call. You may recall that our last two casting calls were a complete bust, so prayerfully, things will go better this time around! If you are interested, please send an email to animaladventures@aol.com. Below are some pictures from the very first performance. Please enjoy!:

An angel approaching Jesus while He is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane

A Roman soldier giving Jesus a drink of vinegar on a hyssop plant

Actors in the play (From left to right): Roman soldier, angel, Ben, Mary, Kim, angel, Zoey, Jesus, Mary Magdalene

Zoey (right) telling Kim (center) to look in her Bible to see where Jesus went after He was arrested, Ben (left) is the camera man

Peter during his monologue after he denied Christ three times

The chief priest (forground) confronting Pilate (background right), Kim and Zoey are standing to the left

Pilate (left) speaking to Jesus (right), the soldier is keeping an eye on Jesus

Pilate speaking to the crowd

The Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus' clothing

Now, I’d say that since Christmas is so close, we’ll start our last dino-Christmas carol. This one is from the book I mentioned earlier:

We Wish You A Dino Holiday (sung to the tune of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas")

We Wish You A Dino Holiday;
We Wish You A Dino Holiday;
We Wish You A Dino Holiday;
And a Happy New Year!

Our stockings are hug, our hearts
filled with glee;
We've wrapped up a Raptor for
under the tree.

We Wish You A Dino Christmas;
We Wish You A Dino Christmas;
We Wish You A Dino Christmas;
And a Happy New Year!

Eight candles we'll light this
Hanukkah night,
Dinosaur-a-Menorah will shine
clear and bright!

We Wish You A Dino Hanukkah;
We Wish You A Dino Hanukkah;
We Wish You A Dino Hanukkah;
And a Happy New Year!

Our kinara is lit, our Kuumba's increased;
We're letting the dinosaurs join
in the feast!

We Wish You A Dino Kwanzaa;
We Wish You A Dino Kwanzaa;
We Wish You A Dino Kwanzaa;
And a Happy New Year!

We Wish You A Dino Holiday;
We Wish You A Dino Holiday;
We Wish You A Dino Holiday;
And a Happy New Year!

Alright, so we’ve sung our last dino-Christmas song of the year. I don’t know about you, but I have really enjoyed this holiday season. I hope you did too! Now that we’re done, go enjoy the season with your family, sing carols (maybe even dino-carols!) re-read the Nativity story, watch a Christmas special, enjoy the real reason for the season (Jesus), but most of all . . . have a Merry, merry CHRISTMAS!!!

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