The Christmas Story

When we think about Christmas, we often talk about two things; the first being presents, the second being Jesus' birth. I grew up in a traditional Christian household; my pastor would often tell and retell one bad dad joke that went something like this, "When I was younger, I had a drug problem... My parents dragged me to church every time the doors were open! We went every Sunday if you had the flu or not, every Sunday night for singing service, Wednesdays, and some days just because!" That was a pretty accurate description of my upbringing. I saw all of that because what amazed me was how we never told the Christmas story at Christmas time.

I remember singing at the Laurel London Nursing Home every Saturday morning. One particular Saturday, around Christmas, after we had finished our Christmas special with all the old Christmas hymns, an older gentleman with a single leg in a wheelchair, who always wore his faded black Vietnam Vet covered in pins, raised his shaking hand and asked Joel, my pastor, if he could end our time together by reciting the Christmas Story. He told the story from memory. Never missing a line, and with such passion, it was as if he mustered up all the strength he had left in his tired body to tell one more story. By the end of his monologue, not an eye was dry, especially mine. I looked for him every Saturday after that, but I never saw him again. The next Christmas I started reading the birth story of Jesus just as it was recited by that man on that day. I have read this story every Christmas since, mostly to myself, then to my babies after they nodded off to sleep in hopes they would dream of it, and now on the floor, snuggled up on Christmas Eve. Stories like this are ones that will truly never grow old.