The other day I set out the last of my Christmas decorations, a rustic stable with its miniature nativity scene.
Some of the little inexpensive nativity members have been around almost as long as I have. I remember earning 25¢ a week allowance. I did the dishes six days a week at the age of ten. As my memory sees it, I walked to the five & dime store, Gilbert Brothers, about a mile away. Life was safer and simpler then, and obviously much cheaper.
Before the holidays, I purchased Nativity figurines sculpted from painted plaster with my weekly allowance. First, I bought Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Then came the sheep. Since they were cheapest, I ended up with a pasture of lambs. In time, I carted home a couple of shepherds, a donkey, and two wise men. Christmas came; I had to wait for the third wise man, camels, and a manger. The following June, the store closed its doors, and I never purchased the missing pieces.
I know of no other children except mine who learned such a poignant lesson of survival of the fittest. They believed the third wise man never arrived, because on foot he could not tolerate the desert sun.
Packed away in the garage, some of the Nativity characters didn’t fair well in the Whittier earthquake of 1987, including one of the two wise men. One Christmas, years later, when Sue Trueblue saw my skeleton crew sitting on a piece of felt covered with angel hair, she wheedled her husband into building me a beautiful wooden stable and purchased a new Nativity scene for me.
When I opened the gift, I found two of the wise men cracked and broken. Now I’m back to two wise men again. It just goes to show you, maybe there were never three wise men on earth at the same time. 
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So cute Penny! We had exactly the same set!