Nativity scenes and Christmas cards make the birthing place of Jesus like something out of a “Tennessee Made-for-Television Christmas Special” with Garth Brooks sitting on a bale of hay strumming some of our Holiday favorites in a clean barn with domesticated animals and seats for the children to drink their hot chocolate. Clearly this was not the case for Joseph and Mary. The conditions were crude. We can assume animals were present, but the text never confirms it. Animals probably were at some time housed there since Jesus was placed in a manger, which is a feeding trough for animals. The whole place smelled not only from animal droppings, but also from poverty, scandal, insignificance, helplessness, humiliation and embarrassment.