Challenge #00334: The first Christmas in Space

Someone has set up a little model nativity scene, and then has to explain to the others “why they are sacrificing that baby to the animals”

The ships’ human had set up a small altar in their assigned space. There was a small pine tree (live) that had been stasis-shipped from Britania. There was assorted sparkly lights, a metallic plastic substance referred to as ‘tinfoil’ and numerous spheroids hung about the little branches.

The saurians who were the rest of the crew observed in shifts. Everything the human did was recorded out of understandable paranoia, of course, but watching it happen in person was part of the experience.

When the human was done with the tree - not very many leaves showed through by the time she was done - she began on another strange ritual.

It was a diorama, they were certain of that. The scene was contained - more or less - in an effigy of a wooden hut. Sheep, cows, goats, chickens, a horse and a dog turned the hut into a barn.

There was a human figure with wings. Enquiry revealed it was an angel. A divine figure of some bizarre human theism. And they were all bizarre.

There were other humans in strange garb. Three very ornate ones were the 'wise men’. A man and a woman in simpler robes were called 'Mary’ and 'Joseph’.

It was the centerpiece of the diorama that caused shock and alarm. The tiny figure of an infant, lain in a sacrificial bowl.

It took days of explaining for the human to help them understand that it was not a scene of sacrifice, but one of celebration. There was a lot of singing involved. And three documentaries. And five story-books.

The human, by the end of it, didn’t want to get started on Santa Claus.

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