IF:Spirit

The Illustration Friday prompt this week was Spirit. First words that came to mind when reading it was "...in the spirit of Christmas", the idea that something outside yourself inspires you. So in the spirit of Christmas, I'm posting a nativity scene I stitched a long time ago, back in 2009. Still love the idea, Mary resting and Joseph, as a new dad, holding and admiring the little baby, before....all the rest of the Christmas story and what was to come after.
The scene was also inspired by my own experiences, gladly handing over our daughters to their dad to close my eyes and try to get the room to stop spinning.
We had one of our daughters at the start of the Christmas season and so the verse in Luke 2...

"But Mary treasured up all these things

and pondered them in her heart (vs 19)"

is very special to me as is the memory of Jon, at every opportunity holding, loving and getting to know his daughters. Both went through daily crying fits. The oldest could only be soothed by her dad dancing with her in the living room to Micheal Martin Murphy's Christmas album...

one song in particularly was very fitting, Two Step Round the Christmas Tree.

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