Eagle, I know what you mean. But I also know this will be another miraculous Christmas for you and everyone else who tries to get it right.

So our grandkids will have time with Santa's toys on Christmas Day, we have Christmas ahead of time at our house. Yesterday we had our annual sit down Christmas dinner with tons of food and gifts for an entire extended family of kids, grandkids, parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a few strangers. It lasts all day into the night and out of towners sleep over. A few folks that no one really knows show up and our kids bring a few unexpected friends so there’s no way to plan. The guest list grows and everything gets more complicated every year. It's a nightmare of astronomical proportion. But once again, we all survived and it was a tremendous blessing.

I gave up on being Martha Stewart long ago, but for some reason I am still compelled to strive for the perfect Christmas. I start decorating at Thanksgiving and go from an excited kid to a total grump. Lights go out, decorations break, and things fall apart then I start buying gifts and turn into a major Scrooge. If we somehow avoid bankruptcy, I start cooking and turn into a fat kitchen witch. Then I feel l guilty for being such a grump which increases the stress even more.

But this year I was so calm I hardly knew myself. I even enjoyed a being grumpy.

I think it resulted from working on a Christmas comedy. I imagined how stressed poor Mary must have been when out of the blue, an angel showed up to tell her she was pregnant with the Son of God. When she told her fiancé, Joseph, he tried to kick her to the curb then like most men in a crisis, he took a nap and an angel told him in a dream to be nice to Mary. After they made up, he decided to take them on a wild hair trip to Bethlehem for the census and he expected poor pregnant Mary to ride a donkey for heaven's sake.

The trip must have been awful. Donkeys stink and Mary was probably having morning sickness. On top of that, while Joseph was trying to make good time, Mary probably had to pee every few miles. And I’m pretty sure there were no decent rest stops.

When they finally got to Bethlehem, Joseph hadn’t made reservations so they wound up in a smelly old stable. They were probably exhausted, irritable and grumpy from the trip and to top it all off, Mary went into labor. While they were dealing with all that, a smelly homeless shepherd showed up and they got news that a bunch of wealthy kings were coming. The stable was probably a wreck, but just when things couldn’t get worse, a bright star lit up the place and the baby was born. When Mary held him in her arms and called him Jesus, the whole universe was miraculously filled with peace, love, and joy.

Seems like a similar miracle happens around here every year. After a month of decorating, shopping, wrapping, cooking, and major stress, the miracle happened again here yesterday as it does every year. And we were blessed by abundant love.

smile