The Missing Manger

Last weekend, was a busy one.  Bird's on-line classes have begun and they're keeping him plenty busy.  He does at least 3 hours of homework each night.  This means we have to take advantage of every extra moment we have together on weekends.  One of the many things on our To Do list last weekend was to put up the Christmas tree and a few other holiday decorations.  One of our family's favorite decorations is our manger scene.  Bird's family bought for us in Oberammergau Germany.  It has quite a story to go along with it.

  Yaya loved helping daddy put the barn together.

So here's the story... When Bird's parents were first married they bought a manger set while traveling through  Oberammergau, Germany together.  When Bird and I were married they passed it down to us.  Nothing funny about that, right?

Well, about 4 years into our marriage Bird's parents asked us about the manger set.  Neither Bird or I could find it anywhere.  We had moved 4 times in 4 years and somehow the manger scene had been "misplaced".  We lived in Italy at the time his parents began asking about it and we tore our house apart trying to find it.  I even looked at my detailed inventory of things we left in MT at least 100 times.  It became the great mystery of our family. 

Where did the manger scene go?

Fast forward to our second year in Italy.  Bird's family flew over to spend a month with us and we traveled all over together.  One of the places we stopped was Oberammergau.  While we were there, his parents bought us a new manger set to replace the one we could not find.

Fast forward 4 months.  I was beginning a new inventory because we're preparing to move back to the states.  As I check things off the old list and transferred them to the new list I come across something peculiar on a page of items we left with my grandparents in MT.  It simply said,

 "Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus." 

I immediately looked at the clock to decipher the time change between Italy and the US and proceeded to call my grandparents.  My inventory was so detailed I was able to tell them exactly what color the box was and what the label on top said and I asked them to look inside and see if said box held the LOST MANGER SCENE.

VOILA! 

Mystery Solved! 

You can imagine how utterly stupid I felt admitting we had it all along.  Especially since I had typed the words myself, in BOLD print mind you but didn't recall ever seeing it.  When Bird called his parents to tell them the mystery had been solved and the manger scene was safe in my grandparents basement their laughs could be heard through the phone clear on the other side of the room.  It turns out our blunder worked out for all involved.  We ended up passing the lost set on to Bird's sister since we now had the one pictured below. 

Now, when any of us are unable to find anything and it suddenly turns up under our noses we chant the words, "Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus" and chuckle to ourselves all over again. 

How about you and your family?  Do you have any crazy mishap moments that often come to mind and make you laugh?