The shepherds, the angels, the magi are not really noticed. How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. What we see is an ordinary day in the life of the little town. In the foreground someone buthers and bleeds a squealing pig. A woodman struggles with a load of firewood.
Children cavort on a frozen pond.
A young man makes an obvious pass at an unwilling maid. All in all, it is an ordinary, mundane winter day with nothing save the wreath to suggest anything extraordinary, anything beyond the expected. But then if we look more carefully at the scene, down toward the bottom of the canvas we see moving toward the census takers at the inn, an inconspicuous, thoroughly ordinary yound woman on a donkey led by a stoop-shouldered bearded peasant who carries a saw. Here is Mary, with Joseph the carpenter, come to town to be counted. The Presence goes unnoted as we thumb through the evening paper.