
December 1956. My older sister Melody age 5, dressed in a pink bathrobe and a pink towel on her head, carried a baby doll wrapped in swaddling clothes (a cream colored doll blanket).
She lead the way from Nazareth (our bedroom) through the mountains (the kitchen) to Bethlehem (the living room) to the manger (a pillow on the floor covered with a wool doll blanket the color of straw). I was 3, trailing behind her, reverently carrying my favorite doll blanket edged with a pink border and embroidered with the outline of a dog playing with a pink ball beside a pink flower.