Our wandering child

Come back, Baby Jesus!

THE CHALON LIBRARY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS went up on December 3, and no sooner was the Creche scene complete than Baby Jesus disappeared.  In the spot where the manger had been were his heartbroken parents and an empty patch of straw.

A couple days later, our colleague Cheryl Ocampo pointed out that Baby Jesus was making the rounds of the Chalon Campus, and you could follow him on Instagram, the smartphone social media app, with the handle @sweetbabyjesusofmsmc.

Hello from London.

If you want to find somebody in social media, you have to be there yourself, obviously. So we signed up for Instagram (@MSMCArchives) just in time to see the Christ Child take off for London on Christmas Day (captioned, of course, "Happy Birthday to me").

Well, two can play this game. Hoping eventually to reunite the ceramic Holy Family in the library Creche, we started posting some pleas on Instagram from the Virgin Mary for her Baby to come home.  A week ago, we finally heard from @sweetbabyjesusofmsmc: "Relaaaax....I'm having fun. and I will be back."

At this point we're starting to think that Baby Jesus is channeling his inner teenager.

Getting closer... down the hill.

Classes resumed today and Baby Jesus is indeed back... somewhere.  Instagram has SweetBabyJesusOfMSMC posing in the O of Joseph on the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet sign down the hill.  But he hasn't made his reappearance in the library. As of an hour ago, Mary and Joseph were still waiting for their wandering child.

In archives terminology, by the way, this is called "replevin," which means getting your stuff back that was taken wrongly or illegally. Call this "social replevin." We can't wait to hear about the London trip.