Merry Christmas!

Whenever I sit down to read a "Christmas reflection" or "Advent devotional" I am always amazed by how rich the Christmas story is, and how deep our imaginations are. We can get, and put in, so much meaning about the nativity, the characters, the humanity of the story. We have a lot of far-fetched ideas. Even when biblical exposition clearly teaches certain truths about the conception, birth, and early childhood of Christ, we hold on to Christmas card pictures of stars over barns with three impressive figures on camels standing by, Mary looking anything but like a woman who just gave birth in a barn and Joseph as an old man. I'm rather an iconoclast about it because all the "magic" and "miracle" of Christmas just gets in the way of the reality, at least I think so. On the other hand, there is immense charm to it, such as Hollywood stories of angels coming to help ministers who need some guidance, legends of animal behavior in the presence of the Christ Child, and tales of redemption for misers.

We can, I suppose, spend as much time debunking the trappings of Christmas (such as carols; see http://www.christianitytodayblogs.com/history/2008/12/top_eight_historically_incorre.html) as was spent starting them in the first place. I'm thinking of the plot for a Christmastime novel, but cliches abound.

Merry Christmas to any who read this blog--very few, from what I can tell.