Shoplifting a Baby Jesus

When I arrived at the store on a brisk December morning, in one quick glance I could see that the main display window was virtually empty. The only thing in it was a set of light-up houses on the floor.

I turned the key in the lock and stepped inside. The alarm pad flashed at me as I punched in the secret numbers to turn it off.

“What the hell, Natasha?” I asked, when the window dresser arrived for work later that day.

“You have to see it at night,” she gushed. “It’s so cool.”

“I’m sure it is, but…”

I explained to her that during the day, most of our customers would just walk on by, thinking the window was empty. It couldn’t stay like that for the month of December. Thirty percent of our year’s business was expected to transpire in the next 23 days. We needed to draw people in to buy stuff.

I could see from her face that she was crushed, but undeterred, she begged me to wait until evening before making a decision. 

All day, I sensed a grumbling amongst the employees, for they were on Natasha’s side. The window was a sacred work of art, and I was a crass mercenary Ebenezer Scrooge.

I waited around to see how the window looked after closing time, when all the interior store lights, all seventy-seven $10 quartz halogens, were turned off, and only the front window glowed like a jewel in the night.

Natasha had been assigned window display duty that month, and with the assistance of Liv, had pulled an all-nighter, draping the back of the large central display window with a hand-painted bedsheet, a gradient of midnight blue at the top to glowing golden sapphire near the bottom. Celestial bodies, including a bright and shining North Star roamed the night sky. Pale tulle clouds floated, suspended with fishing line pinned to the ceiling. 

On the floor of the display, they’d created a Middle Eastern tableau with burlap, beach sand, and cacti. In the center, on a lumpy hill, they’d set out the three porcelain light-up buildings of the Little Town of Bethlehem. 

For a few years we’d been dabbling in selling decorative light-up houses from an American company called Dept. 56, but that year, we’d gone all in, investing a good chunk of money in a full inventory of Dickens Village, North Pole, Christmas in the City, and, for the first time, Little Town of Bethlehem. 

The middle building of the miniature holy town was the stable, and of course, it was the main attraction. Mary, kneeling in her blue gown, and little baby Jesus in his manger.

(As an aside, I must take this moment to tell you that baby Jesus was the most frequently shoplifted item from our store at Christmastime. We took to holding him back; keeping him under the counter until someone laid down their hard cold cash for a crèche. Only then did we provide the baby Jesus.)

Along side Mary were porcelain figures; a donkey, a cow, and a few lambs; the wise men; a shepherd; Joseph, a minor character with a badass beard; and a camel. 

Taking in the entire window display from the south side of Queen Street that night, I could see that Natasha’s window was indeed glorious; I may have heard angels; but by day it was a retail flop. 

I wondered to myself, what would happen if word got out that I had nixed a nativity scene window? I worried about the store’s reputation. We were finally getting past our head-shop origins, now we might face some backlash from the Christians.

The following day, I was saved from making a Grinchy proclamation when a customer came into the store to buy the nativity set in the window. She wanted it now, and she didn’t flinch at the price. 

Staff shared worried looks, for the only set, the literal one-and-only floor model, was in the window, on a bed of burlap. To sell it to this customer meant crawling into the window and dismantling Natasha’s display. 

What would we replace the Little Town of Bethlehem with? Santa and the North Pole houses seemed wildly out of the question.

Natasha swapped out her window display later that day, filling it with a half-hearted attempt at a good old red & green holly jolly commercial Christmas. Up front, she displayed our best selling Christmas card, pictured below. 

Within days, a handwritten, anonymous, complaint arrived, slid through the mail slot in the door after closing time. Soon after, we sold out of the card.

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Your replies inspire me…

In an email exchange with a reader recently, she told me that when she unpacks her Christmas ornaments, she is reminded of my old store, Stoneworks, on Queen Street in the Beaches. I wondered then if I could summon up a humorous anecdote about the store at Christmastime, so this is for you, Karen. And although most of the story is true, the ending is most likely a figment of my addled imagination.

Do you have any cringey Christmas retail experiences? And have you ever shoplifted a baby Jesus? Hit reply and let me know, or leave a message in the comments.

HAPPY SOLSTICE & MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU!!!

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On the night that Trudy Asp discovers her ex is engaged to the same dental hygienist who’s been picking at her teeth for ten years, her daughter, Madison, suddenly announces that she too is getting married, in Europe.

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