The Atlantic

Your Christmas Nativity Scene Is a Lie

There probably weren’t three kings. And Jesus wasn’t blond.
Source: Phil Sears / AP

What happens when you cross the newborn baby Jesus with The Walking Dead? Upset neighbors and a whole of of controversy—especially if you’re the couple in Ohio who built a zombie nativity in their front yard. Theirs isn’t even the strangest nativity out there: There are Etsy artisans offering nativities featuring everything from cats to Star Wars characters. There’s a rubber-duck nativity for those who want yuletide during their bath time, and even an Irish nativity with three wise men bearing gifts of clover, Guinness, and a pot of gold. The 2003 Christmas film Love Actually famously featured a grade-school nativity play with multiple lobsters, Spider-Man, and a large green octopus—as if pointing out the myriad strange ways the nativity can been reimagined.

And yet these

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