Celebrating the reason for the season

Ayla Bellus kneeled down on the carpeted floor and slowly reached out to one of the wooden figures clustered together in the church's main hallway. The three year old was a bit curious as she touched the wool coat covering a sheep before she poked at a star hovering over the display.
At her mother's urging, the youngster was drawn to a tiny wooden figure wrapped in a blanket lying on top of a small pile of straw.
"It's Jesus," the youngster told her mother as she held it up for a few seconds before she carefully placed it back in the display.
While she was able to put a name to the figure, Ayla was perhaps a little too young to understand the significance that tiny figure represented -- the symbol of a child born in a stable more than 2,000 years ago.
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