Day 22 – Today, do something kind for an animal: put some birdseed out, walk a pet a little longer, give some money to your favorite animal charity, etc.
Every nativity scene I’ve ever seen has animals in it. This makes sense since it takes place in a stable where the animals live. Plus, there are all those sheep that the shepherds wouldn’t have left behind.
I have two nativities. My smaller one that was a gift from my husband has only seven pieces. They left out the shepherd but included a sheep. That is how important animals are.
If you think about it, Jesus was already born when the shepherds arrived. Therefore, the first ones to see the baby, after Mary and Joseph, would have been the animals that lived in the stable (and probably ate from the manger where Jesus was sleeping) and the donkey that brought them to Bethlehem.
If you like to cry, watch “The Small One,” a Disney featurette about the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem. I only saw this movie once and remember bawling uncontrollably, so I’ll skip it, but it’s sweet to watch a familiar story from a different point of view. Remarkably, you can see this on Amazon Prime but not Disney+.
Rather than watching a sob story, you can do something nice for the animals in your life. Buy them a new toy. Give an outdoor cat a warm bed. Buy your fur babies a special treat. Christmastime can be stressful for pets so make sure you take good care of them.
By the way, I never see dogs and cats in nativity scenes, but I assume they were there. Shepherds use herding dogs and cats hunt mice in areas where there is hay, so I think they should be represented too.