Irises: Merry Christmas to All, 1 by bonjon

bonjon wrote:
Wrote this yesterday elsewhere, and it was well received so I'm posting it here for all my DG iris friends.


Today, for the first time ever, we went to our DAUGHTER’S home instead of having the kids all come to mine. She was stressing out because we didn’t have FIRM PLANS for the day, we were pretty much winging it. Mostly because my plans to hold a family brunch were falling through due to lack of interest on the part of extended family. Ah, yes, my folks now have such an active social life at their new independent living apartment that they didn’t plan on spending any time with us! LOL Still, Dear Daughter was freaking out and losing it on me, taking me to task for not being more organized. (like that’s ever likely to happen at my age)

So I repeated for her the sermon from the midnight candlelight service we’d been to. Told her about how Christmas started. How a teenaged girl had an unplanned pregnancy. She’d never even been with a boy, she just got this unplanned angel visit telling her she was having a child. Joseph, an older dude, was betrothed to her, which, in those days was everything marriage was except the having sex part, finds out his beloved appears to have been cheating on him. Back in those days, that meant he’d already paid a dowry for the girl, so her stepping out on him was NOT in his plans, either, otherwise why cough up the dowery? But he was a nice guy, a sweetheart of a fella, real marriage material. He decided, planned, to divorce her quietly, then HE gets the unexpected angel visit, too. Talk about screwed up plans.

Then, to make things really messed up, Joseph is ordered to travel to Bethlehem for new taxes. Bummer, new taxes were not in the planned budget. To make things worse, Mary is heavy with child, no way should she be traveling. But they have to go, so go they do. And like every unexpected trip with a pregnant person, it ends up with an emergency, unplanned delivery far from home and family. Worse yet, there’s no room at the hotel. Not even a bed and breakfast is open. They have the baby in about the equivalent of the back seat of a taxi cab at a taxi garage.

And then visitors?!! Dirty shepards, half frozen and scared to death, wondering what the heck is going on. Then some high toney royal types from foreign countries show up. Can't even talk the language!Talk about a hostess nightmare!

So before we think that the Martha Stewarts of this age invented the perfect way to have an organized Christmas, let us all remember that Christmas comes whether we have cleaned the house or set the table, whether or not we’ve cooked a single dish, or prepared any gift to give. It comes because God gave His Son to be Savior of this world. It comes because we were sent the Lamb of God, to save us all. All He asks in return is that we give Him our hearts, and our souls. And, if you think about it, a little awe would be in order, too, every time you hear a choir singing “Gloria.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS – AND TO ALL A SAFE JOURNEY HOME.

the morning after . . . . "ok, y'all left this bag here, now it's MINE!"