It should be kept in mind that online reproductions of icons may not adequately reflect the art and colors of the originals.

   Orthodox icons do not aim at being realistic (e.g. they lack  perspective and shadow) but rather at conveying the theological meaning and Grace of the Mystery of whatever is portrayed.  Miriam Lambouras has given a very enlightening example of the icon of the Birthday of Christ (The Shepherd, Dec. 1998).   The ox and the ass in the icon refer to a prophecy of Isaiah ("The ox knows his owner; and the ass, his master's crib"), while the star shining on the all-holy Infant is "a deliberate sign from Heaven."   The all-pure Virgin reclines on a mat-bed "to emphasize [the] truly human Birth" or is seated by a manger "to emphasize her miraculous 'birth without pains'" (Gen. 3:16) and the Divinity of the Infant.  (Later icons, we are told, have the Theotokos kneeling before the Child, "but this is the result of Western influence.")  The all-holy Virgin's face is often averted from the Child because in the swaddling clothes she has perceived the burial clothes of Christ and his Sepulchre.   Angels are portrayed as messengers and worshiping Spirits.  Shepherds and the Magi have their rôles.  Two items reflect deuterocanonical  writings:  The midwives, having found the Theotokos still a virgin, witness to Christ's two natures.  Satan appears in a shepherd's guise to St. Joseph (who is a guardian of the Mother of God rather than a participant in the Birth) in order to tempt him to doubt the celestial truth.  And plants and rocks are included with the sheep to emphasize that the event is in time, though it has an "eternal and cosmic significance."  If there had been disorder in nature so that  matter had been only a shadow of heavenly reality, matter and time now become, through the Incarnation--and Resurrection--vehicles and channels of the divine Energies of Grace and the everlasting Life of our uncreated God and Savior--the Reason and Wisdom of God, Who created all that is and apart from Whom was made nothing that has been created (John 1:3).