{"id":42,"date":"2007-12-21T10:30:24","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/not-until-his-birthday-please.html"},"modified":"2007-12-21T10:30:24","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T10:30:24","slug":"not-until-his-birthday-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/not-until-his-birthday-please.html","title":{"rendered":"Not Until His Birthday, Please"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, at least 12 residents of Santa Clarita, California discovered something missing from the nativity scenes they had put up in their front yards–the baby Jesus. In place of the baby, according to Los Angeles’ KNBC News<\/a>, the thieves left a note that read, “Do not worry for baby Jesus is not gone, yet he is just not born, yet.”
\nThe statues were indeed not gone, but instead were placed at the foot of a statue of the Virgin Mary at the nearby Our Lady of Perpetual Help church, baffling Msgr. Paul Montoya. “I’m not too sure if it’s a young person’s prank. We’re not sure why they would do this,” he said.
\nPerhaps the thieves were trying to reinforce the practice among many Catholics of not putting baby Jesus into the manger until the day of his birth, Christmas Eve?
\nPlease feel free to share your opinion on when baby Jesus should be placed in the manger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, at least 12 residents of Santa Clarita, California discovered something missing from the nativity scenes they had put up in their front yards–the baby Jesus. In place of the baby, according to Los Angeles’ KNBC News, the thieves left a note that read, “Do not worry for baby Jesus is not gone, yet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\nNot Until His Birthday, Please - December Dilemma Watch 2007<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/2007\/12\/not-until-his-birthday-please.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Not Until His Birthday, Please - December Dilemma Watch 2007\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week, at least 12 residents of Santa Clarita, California discovered something missing from the nativity scenes they had put up in their front yards–the baby Jesus. 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A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Divinity School, she has more than a decade of experience writing about religion and spirituality for Newsweek, The Washington Post, Spa Finder, Sojourners, Search, and many other publications. Her commentaries have also been heard on NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All Things Considered.\" When not at her desk, you can find her baking, in her garden, or rockin' out in water aerobics class. She lives in Arlington, Mass. Visit http:\/\/www.hollyrossi.com for more.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/author\/hrossi"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/decemberdilemma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}