Every year before Christmas dinner, my family reads a Christmas story together. Mom has been collecting a large binder full of stories for decades now, and we used to flip through the pages and decide on one together. But we’ve had enough Christmases together that by now we’ve read all the stories. So this year the dish I’m bringing to pass is a story. I hope you enjoy it!
***
These days Shalom the Spider wasn’t just moving slower or going gray. Now she was officially, without a doubt, old. She’d raised her own brood of spiders—several sets of multiples—and watched her grand-spiders grow up. Now she even had great-grand-spiders. Generation after generation of her family had been born right here in this little barn in Bethlehem. Some of them had stayed in the village, and some had gone off into the world, seeking new lands and new adventures.
But Shalom had been content to stay where she was—right in the barn where she’d been born and where her mother and grandmother before her had lived. This was where they’d taught her to spin and where they’d spun tales of their own.
Although Shalom had never had an itch to explore distant lands, there was one place she wished she could have visited before she died: the holy city. She’d heard tales about this place from the generations before her, as they told stories late into the night. How the tapestries in the Temple were made of rich purple and blue, how the lamps burned bright and warm all through the night. And most of all, how the people gathered at the Temple to wait for the Messiah who had been promised so many harvests ago.
Some spiders from her village came back to recount stories about their trek to the holy city—about the long climb up the mountain and how the pilgrims would sing together as they climbed so it felt more like an eight-legged dance than an arduous journey.
Every spring, Shalom had dreamed of making the trip, but every spring came and went, and she stayed home. There were offspring to care for, dinners to be caught, webs to be spun, and she could never get away. And now it was too late. Four of her knees were failing her, and they’d never carry her to the top of the Mount now.
It really didn’t bother her much anymore though; after all, she was content to be here in the place she loved, surrounded by her family for this final season of her life. But there were nights when the moon shone silver through the slats of the barn and a familiar ache would set in.
Tonight was one of those nights. So she did what she always did when she couldn’t sleep: she pulled out her special thread pile. She’d been collecting bits of string and fabric ever since she was young. Tiny pieces of cloth that fell off the donkey’s saddle. Sturdy threads from the hem of the farmer’s garment. Scraps of fabric from travelers’ satchels. Even precious purple threads that her friends had brought back for her all the way from the holy city.
Night after night she sat weaving the threads together. As tiny as each piece was, the weaving had grown fairly large after all this time—it was almost the size of the cattle trough by now. Shalom’s friends couldn’t understand why she’d go to so much effort for something so useless. “You don’t need a blanket,” they said. “You’re a spider. And it’s not like you’re going to take it to market to sell it.”
But Shalom wove on, her legs almost on autopilot by now. Truth be told, she didn’t know herself why she did it, only that it soothed her. It felt like something she was made to do.
***
The barn animals were all sleeping when she heard unfamiliar voices just outside the barn. Who could it be at this time of night? she wondered.
She saw the woman’s belly first. Oh, poor woman, Shalom thought. Her time is coming soon.
She was right about soon. In a matter of minutes, the usually quiet barn was filled with the squall of a baby’s first cry. A hush rippled through the barn as every animal turned to look at the Child.
What is it about this Baby? Shalom wondered. He looks like any other baby I’ve seen. But her heart wouldn’t stop its wild beating inside of her.
Before she even realized what she was doing, each set of her legs was bending beneath her, bowing before this Child-King.
The mother smiled at the Baby. “This straw will have to do for your bed, little one,” she said. “I’m only sorry I don’t have a blanket for you.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Shalom rose, not even noticing the way her knees creaked beneath her. The blanket! She could give her blanket to this tiny King.
As Joseph wrapped the baby in the blanket, Shalom’s eyes filled with tears. The Messiah has come to us! I didn’t have to trek far and long to find him. He came here, of all places. And now he’s being warmed by my scraps of thread.
The one who couldn’t be contained within an entire holy city was now wrapped in something so small.
God with us. In this very barn. On this very night.
Immanuel.
***
{Author’s note: According to a Polish legend, a spider made a blanket for the Baby Jesus on the first Christmas Eve. As a result, some Polish families decorate their trees with spiders and spider webs.}
