More than ten years ago I wrote a Christmas pageant called Kid Jesus Remembers Christmas based on the idea that Mary and Joseph would tell Jesus the special story of his birth each year so that he could remember why God sent him to this world. In the play Jesus impresses his cousin John by adding some embellishments to the story, like his mom riding to Bethlehem on an awesome chariot rather than a donkey, but Mary gently stears Jesus back to the true story and meaning of Christmas. Ever since, I have loved creating new ways to tell the story of Jesus' birth.

 

 

You guessed it, I've done some LEGO™ versions! Christmas is such a big deal and has such a big impact on people that it's one of the most used subjects for artwork in the history of the world. If you look online, you can find so so so many depictions of the story. When I set out to tell the story in LEGO™, I started with Mary speaking with the angel Gabriel.

 

 

I also included a really excited Joseph holding the newborn Jesus.

 

 

What do you notice about the way that I portrayed Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and Gabriel? What kind of clothes are they wearing? What expression is on their face? What is the color of their skin? Do you think you can make your own version?

 

For this version (there are more!), I chose outfits with layered clothing like robes and sashes. I chose really expressive faces and biblical skintones. I searched through tons and tons of options before I found something that worked. Like you, I had to use outfits from LEGO™ characters for my special minifigs. Do you have a guess what characters I used?

 

	Body	Face
Gabriel	Luke Skywalker	Diego Maradona
Mary	(Wong) Doctor Strange	America Chavez
Joseph	Doctor Strange	Lando Calrissian
Jesus	Special Baby Blanket	Common Happy Face

 

When I design a LEGO™ set, it's really important to me that people are able to connect with the story and all that it teaches us about God's love. We use a theological approach that comes from the Civil Rights Movement and the work of Deotis Roberts who wrote about Black folks needing to see Jesus as Black in order to fully feel his love. Roberts went even further than this, he explained that Jesus on the cross is the most powerful symbol in the world, so powerful that it transcends any cultural barriers so that any person is empowered to see or depict Jesus in the way that helps them to best experience the fullness of God's love embodied on the cross. In other words, little kids in Japan can see Jesus as looking like them. The same goes for kids in Sweden, or Puerto Rico, or Tansania. The same goes for grown ups all over the world. The same goes for presenting disabilities, like Jesus depicted as using a wheelchair.

 

When I started designing my Tini Nativity, I wanted people to be able to see themselves in the tini little Jesus. This Jesus is even smaller than a minifigure and the set includes pieces for him to have lighter or darker skin.

 

 

We also included colorful 1x1 plates so people could pick how to depict Mary and Joseph's cloaks and hoods. While the Tini Nativity is designed to be the size of an ornament, we wanted our original big nativity to be something that can either be played with or set out at home or at church as a decoration. We've even heard of churches using it in worship!

 

What do you want to do with your LEGO nativity? Would you like to play with the figures and act out the story or do you want to show it off as an expression of God's love? How about both!? Think about the facial expressions on the minifigs of the story. Are they excited, surprised, happy?

 

A couple years ago, I even designed a special Mini Nativity that is just the right size for adding your own original minifigures of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.

Who else should you add to your nativity scene? What about a donkey or sheep? Should you add any other animals? What about shepherds, angels, or the magi visiting Jesus? Is there anyone else you want to add? Could you add yourself as a minifigure visiting Jesus?

Recently, I had a church ask me to make a special version of the Holy Family with golden skin to reflect the light of the star over Bethlehem. I haven't even mentioned the star yet! Will you make a star for your version?

Whose outfits did I use this time? I used Gandalf and Rey. Whose outfits are you using?

 

The important thing to remember is that God's love and all that Jesus brought to our world is portrayed through your version. It's fun to play around with the different outfits, hairs, and faces from Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or our favorite superhero stories. Those are cool stories but they are nowhere near as amazing as the story of Jesus! We can even reimagine Jesus' birth to include something fun like the shepherds herding bears instead of sheep, but there's actually no way to make the story of Christmas any better than it already is.

 

As Mary says: