Friday, December 3, 2004

Don't Eat the Vegetables

One Yuletide constant in the bookstore is the overabundance of nativity sets. We literally have them piled up in the front of store. We are out of shelf space. Who knew there were so many takes on the Holy Family sitting in a barn?

Into this fray enters the VeggieTales Nativity Play Set.

I should mention how much I love VeggieTales. I find their videos to be funny, intelligent and great for parents and kids alike. For that, I can look past the unsettling nature of talking vegetables.

Just an aside: What do the VeggieTales characters eat? They can’t be vegetarians. That would make them cannibals. For once the vegetarians would be the cruel ones. I’m guessing its some sort of bread-based high carb diet.

Anyway, despite my love for VeggieTales, I do have to wonder if they’ve gone too far depicting baby Jesus as a baby carrot. I usually dip baby carrots in ranch dressing. For some reason, I feel uncomfortable with the idea of baby Jesus smothered in salad dressing or any other condiment for that matter. It just doesn’t seem orthodox.

Surely, nativity sets are supposed to inspire contemplative thoughts of the lowly conditions surrounding the birth of Christ. The only thing the VeggieTales Nativity Play Set makes me think is, “Boy, a salad sure does sound good right about now.”

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the veggies eat sunlight, carbon dioxide, and minerals that they soak up from the soil, just like real plants.

Neville said...

ben, once again, you've made my cracked smile turn into ridiculous giggling. you have a way of taking things further that makes me like life way more than i think i should. oh and kate...i liked your comment too. it quickly reminded me of jim carrey's facial expression when he saw his triplets being born as small black children.

karen said...

The gourds must have been crazy when this happened! Hmm.. I wonder if this the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song.

Chasing Inspriation said...

I don't own a nativity set. But the Veggie Tales Nativity Play Set my have tickled my inner child enough to actually purchase one. Yes, the evil step-mil would probably think I was serious if I added that to my Christmas list. You know the one I'm talking about. The one I bought the book for on Saturday. In your store.

The one plus with this playset is that my nephews would actually pay attention to it when the father in law reads the long, boring version of the Christmas story. Don't get me wrong, I love the story of baby Jesus. I just don't appreciate my fil's delivery, God love him. Why do we insist on reading Bible stories without inflection or dramatization? Reverence perhaps. Let's take a page out of the Veggie Tales book and start to incorporate a Silly Song from Larry. That would draw our attention.

Anonymous said...

Gotta say I lean towards Rouver's pov on this one--the idea of depicting the holy family as vegetables, no matter what kind of personalities they have, strikes me as kinda missing the wonder and the point of the whole Nativity.

Or maybe I'm just not a veggie tales kind of girl. I recoil from this set, but if other people get something out of it more power to them. I guess.

Jay said...

Well, I'd like to say that the Veggie Tales thing suprises me, but not so much:the religious thing is not new to them, they cover the story of Jonah in a movie. Another nativity scene that did catch me off guard was the one at Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London.
Victoria Beckham aka Posh Spice's wax double poses as Mary, while her husband soccer star David represents Joseph. Tony Blair, the Duke of Edinburgh and George Bush (ahem) make up the Three Wise Men.
Hugh Grant, Samuel L. Jackson and Graham Norton play shepherds, and good old Kylie Minogue plays the angel...I always said the Nativity scene would be vastly improved by some cheesy dance pop music!

Anonymous said...

I've heard that Phil Vischer comment, too. I have young kids and a wealth of Veggie vids, and in even in the Easter and Christmas shows, they made a point of never depicting Jesus, except in a sequence with animated stained glass windows (Easter Carol) picturing actual human beings. It's strange to realize that they've broken that taboo with the nativity scene.

Jason said...

Reid Davis-


I would lean mostly toward option (2), and this nativity set stirred the same debate within Big Idea walls. The official explaination for the toy is that these are not NEW characters. It is still Larry, Junior, etc..., making this more of a set (like a theatrical play). Therefore, Jesus is not a Veggie Character, but is being portrayed in a play.

Again, I'd lean toward (2).

-Jason

Jennifer/Jaimie said...

I have a problem with Christmas in general. God said we weren't to worship him the way the pagans worshipped their gods, and yet we have Christmas, where Christians celebrate the symbol that is the baby Jesus.