What if a small, rural Catholic congregation put on a lliving Nativity after Midnight Mass - and the Holy Family showed up to help? What if Mary and Joseph's "help" included entrusting the real, live Baby Jesus to the wide-eyed youngsters playing them? Read this charming Christmas fable aloud to your family, and children of all ages will delight in the joyful and wondrous answers to both those questions. Translated into English for the first time, this imaginative and unusual Christmas story is destined to become an Advent classic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alvaro Correa, LC, a former humanities professor, is formator of diocesan seminarians at Maria Mater Ecclesiae Pontifical International College in Rome.