o little star above 13th Avenue

Think enough about holiday stuff and you’ll start to see things. A Brooklyn street becomes a desert with a bright, light glowing in the sky above. You’ll feel compelled to drive toward it, but streetlights, traffic patterns, and gravity will keep you firmly where you are. Modern astronomers and scientists confirm that there might have been a star or planet in the sky above Bethlehem around the time of Jesus’ birth, give or take a year. The people who lived then, believers in omens, took this as a sign of an important event. The rest of the story – it’s open to interpretation.

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Second nativity scene of the season (detail)

Hurry, use the words frankincense and myrrh. You may not get another chance for 12 months.

This is another pic from Dyker Heights … a nativity scene that looks better in a photo than in person. Here is one of the Three Kings, those mysterious men from the orient, preparing to present his gift to the newborn Jesus. Christian traditions commonly have the wise men either present at Jesus’ birth or arriving on January 6, the Epiphany. Twelve days of feasting and celebrating the beginning of winter? The pagans had been doing that for centuries before Christians adapted the idea.

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