It was just after the New Year – a cold and rainy Friday afternoon. Ray had ridden his bike to his grandfather’s house after school to help pack boxes. Tomorrow his brothers were coming over with the truck, and everything would be moved. Grandpa was going to be staying with the family.

“Grandpa, what should we do with all these little people around the nativity set?” Ray asked. The manger and the figures that went with it – Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and a couple of winged angels – all fit neatly into Styrofoam cut-outs in a store-box, but the townsfolk surrounding the manger didn’t seem to be part of that set.

“Oh, you mean the Santons,” Grandpa said. “Hold on.” He opened a large plastic tub. Inside Ray saw a Christmas wreath, the white ceramic Christmas tree, a couple of stockings, and a shoebox lined with tissue paper. Grandpa handed him the shoebox. “Here you go.”

Ray started carefully stacking the little figures inside. “Why does your nativity set have so many people?”

“That’s the tradition in the country my parents came from. Collecting Santons reminds me of them, I guess. Santon means, “little saint,’ in French.”

Ray had never looked so closely at the figures before. Now, he started to notice some things. “This one on the bicycle – did they really have bicycles when Jesus was born?”

“Probably not,” Grandpa chuckled. “But the Santons aren’t meant to represent people from Christ’s day. They have a special meaning. It’s quite a story, really…” He sat down next to Ray on the sofa and picked up one of the figures as if looking at it for the first time in years.  Click here to read the rest of the story