“Why do you have Mary and Joseph (figurines) on the top of your stove?” Jill, asked.

She’s my daughter-from-another-mother.

I told her I couldn’t find the Baby Jesus, but I still had hope. “I was about to check in these two containers when you came in. I found these while I was looking for a Christmas pillow that one of the grandkids gave us.”

When I opened the lid on a small, decorated box there was something wrapped in a hand towel, and I figured … . No, it wasn’t Baby Jesus.

Jill opened the metal box with a picture of the cranky Hallmark character, Maxine, on the top and the saying, “I baked … it’s a Christmas miracle.”

That triggered a thought, and I asked if she’d just wanted to help me decorate cookies, “Or do you want to bake them, too.”

“Both,” she said, then asked me which grandchild was supposed to get the still-in-the-box 2010-dated Christmas ornament that was in the cookie box.

I thought for a second, and didn’t know, so I closed up my box while Jill waded up some tissue paper in her box.

“This is in two pieces,” she said. “Is this what you were looking for?”

It was the manger, and the Baby Jesus!

“Thank you, Jesus!”

“Where do you want to put them?” she asked.

“I used to put them on top of the cherry wood cabinet I gave you last year when I wanted to move your Dad’s offi ce cabinet into the kitchen.”

They are now nestled on the kitchen table next to canisters of fl our and sugar.

I was so energized in finding Baby Jesus that I made two batches of sugar cookie dough. I even made a test run before I put the second dough in the fridge.

The cookies were good, but won’t put any bakeries out of business.

I still I haven’t found grandson Jarrod’s Christmas pillow, but I’ve already had one Christmas miracle.