A New Kind of Nativity

Jeff got a $25 gift card to Montana's from a student for Christmas, so we decided to go there for dinner last night. After waiting forever to get service, we had a pretty decent meal. But towards the end of the evening, Amanda was getting a little bit antsy, so we were all amusing ourselves by drawing pictures on the paper they had down on the table (with the one crayon we managed to find discarded on the floor, as they didn't provide us with any).

Out of nowhere, Amanda asked us to draw "Baby Jesus". Um, OK - Jeff took that one on as my drawing skills are about equal to those of a walrus. He ended up with something approximating a holy blob - well done Jeff!

But that wasn't the end of it...then Jeff was requested to draw "Jophess", then Mary, then an angel, and the three kings. By this point we were all getting a little giddy and the drawings were getting worse by the second. She asked for a donkey, but the only place left to draw it was right next to, and smaller than, a king, so Jeff told her the donkey's name was Myrrh and the king was bringing him as a gift for the baby Jesus. This seemed to be pretty acceptable. Then we had to draw a sheep, and of course a shepherd to control him.

But then Amanda asked Jeff to draw the guy playing the bagpipes. That was it; we completely lost it. Picture two parents, overly full from their very enjoyable Mud Pie, and tired of waiting for service, pushed past the point of exhaustion and laughing with tears running down their faces, and a puzzled 2.5-year old, laughing along but not really sure she got the joke.

Once we'd calmed down a bit, it turned out Jeff didn't know where she was coming from on this one - he was trying to figure out what bagpipes had to do with a nativity scene. But I knew right away she was talking about this dude:

And here, barely visible on the right edge of the photo:

...all of which led to a rousing discussion in the car on the way home about exactly why a shepherd in Bethlehem is playing the bagpipes, anyway?