Mary, Did You Know....About Nikon?

About a month ago, while at Silver Dollar City with my family and my sister Heidi and her husband Terry, we had a deep theological discussion.  The discussion was sparked by my incessant need to photodocument our outing to Silver Dollar City and the kids among all the millions of lights there.  I was trying to, you know, capture the memory. 
Let me set the scene for you. 
Me forcing my family to smile nicely and act like they were having a marvelous time and totally in love with each other in front of the gigantic lighted Christmas tree for the perfect family Christmas photo.  My family getting more irritated by the second by the number of retakes I demanded and also because for some reason they rather dislike having their picture taken..all.the.time.  Funhaters.
But then I dropped this bomb on them. 
"You guys should be glad I'm taking pictures, that way you can remember all these fun moments of your childhood.  I bet Mary wishes she could've taken pictures of  baby Jesus as he was growing up.  How sad is that, that she didn't get to take his picture or have a baby book for him?"
I wish you could've seen the incredulous looks on the faces of my husband, my sister, my brother in law, and my children.  It was a look like, "really?  WHERE does she come up with this stuff?"  Welcome to inside my head, the water's fine, but these are the kinds of things that cross my mind.  
GI Joe's response was, "I'm pretty sure they weren't really worried about taking pictures and more concerned with, oh I don't know, RAISING THE SON OF GOD."

Whatever GI Joe.  Every mama wants pictures of her babies and I'll bet Mary was no exception.  So that got me thinking.  Isn't it a shame that Nikon and Canon weren't around when Jesus was born?  I'm sure Mary would've liked to have a few pictures of her baby, I mean who else can say they gave birth to JESUS?  Every new mother thinks their baby is God's gift to the world but Mary's baby?  Mary's baby actually WAS God's gift to the world so she wins..showoff.  Also, don't you ever wonder if baby Jesus was a cute baby?  I do.  Because contrary to popular belief not all babies are cute, like the one who was in the nursery as I was pacing the halls of the maternity ward while in labor with Dakota and may or may not have said, "I hope our baby doesn't look like THAT baby cuz it's kinda ugly," about without knowing his Dad was walking right behind us....oops.  If only Mary had had a Nikon we'd know if baby Jesus belonged in the cute baby camp or the unfortunate "hope he grows into it" camp. That would give a whole new meaning to Picture Bibles, wouldn't it? 

It kinda makes me sad for Mary to tell you the truth.  No pictures, no brag book, no baby book.  She raised the greatest guy ever and doesn't even have an 8x10 glossy on the mantle to show for it.   Wonder if she put a notch on the doorframe to track his growth?  Someone should totally track down that doorframe and put that on ebay, can you imagine the bidding war?
So from now on when my family gives me grief about taking their picture yet again, I'm just gonna ask them this, "What would Mary, mother of Jesus, do?  I'll tell you what she'd do, she'd take the picture and I'll tell you what else, her child, JESUS, would smile and cooperate with his mama, SO GET IT TOGETHER PEOPLE!"  
Sacrilegious?  Nah..  Effective?  You be the judge. 

I think their faces say it all. 

WWMD?