A Christmas Story
It was nearly Christmas. We were sitting in front of a roaring, red-hot, roasting fire. Outside, it was dark and cold, but in our living room, we were as snug as bugs in a rug, or so Uncle Billy said. Once more he was staying with us and in the mood to tell a story.
“What shall it be tonight?” he asked.
“It’s almost Christmas,” Rod said, “so how about a Christmas story?”
“Very well,” answered Uncle Billy, settling himself more comfortably in his chair and beginning:
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It was nice and warm inside the stable, if a little crowded. Normally, there was only one somewhat grumpy old donkey called ‘Ahab’ and a pair of oxen housed here. Tonight, however, there were three more donkeys, four camels and a fine white stallion filling up the stable. When Ahab, the old donkey, asked them what they were doing here, one of the camels had deigned to reply in a rather surly voice, “We are here for the census if it is any of your business!”
“Humph!” said Ahab crossly, “Of course it is my business! After all, this is my home…….”
“And ours,” interrupted one of the oxen.
“Humph! Yes and theirs,” continued the donkey. “So what is this census thing when it’s at home then?”
“Oh, I can’t be bothered explaining something as complicated as that to the likes of you!” said the camel very rudely. Turning away from the donkey and taking a mouthful of hay from a manger, he began to chew on it very thoroughly, apparently deep in thought.
“Humph!” said Ahab to himself. “What a rude and snooty animal that camel is.”
Just then, the stallion looked over at him with a kind smile on his face, winking his eye in a friendly manner.
“Take no noticed of our cud-chewing, hump-backed friend there,” he said, “he probably doesn’t know himself if the truth be known! Let me explain.
As you probably know, your master and mine and all the humans who are natives of this country are what they call Jews. However, these Jews are themselves ruled over by people from another country. These people are called Romans and they for some reason best known to themselves, wish to know how many Jews they have under their rule. Therefore, they have ordered them to gather at their place of birth where on a particular day, they will be counted. That day is tomorrow.
Your master was born here in Bethlehem, as was mine, but yours has lived here all his life and now runs the inn next door as well as this stable, so he does not have to travel, for this census. My master, however and the masters of these other animals, whilst having been born here, did not stay, but moved elsewhere to make a living. Therefore, to be counted in the census, we have had to travel back here to Bethlehem from wherever we have been living.”
“Humph! So that’s why we’re so very busy and crowded,” said the donkey. “Thank you for being so kind as to explain it to me.”
“That’s alright,” replied the stallion. “Yes, it is rather crowded, isn’t it?” he observed.
“Humph! Yes! I heard my master turn a number of travellers away this afternoon, saying he was full up and there was no room for any more to stay at the inn. We should not be crowded out any more tonight I am glad to say.”
Oh dear! How wrong could he be?
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There was a loud knocking at the door.
“Who is it at this time of night?” The innkeeper’s wife grumbled, angry at having been woken up so soon after falling asleep.
“I suppose I’ll have to go and see,” growled her husband, “or we’ll have our guests and our neighbours complaining about the noise!”
As he was saying this, he was pulling his robe around himself to keep out the cold night air, for even though Bethlehem is in one of the warmer regions of the world, it still got very cold at night.
“All right! All right! I’m coming! There’s no need to knock the door down!” he shouted to whomever it was persistently hammering on said door.
“What do you want?” he asked abruptly as soon as he had the door opened.
A tall bearded man with a kind, but weary face, stood outside in the cold night air. Just behind him stood a donkey on which sat a young woman who was obviously heavily pregnant and near to her time for giving birth. What struck the innkeeper as being most odd about the scene that confronted him, however, was the fact that even though it was only just about midnight, he could see everything as clear as day.
“Where is this strange light coming from?” he wondered.
Before he could answer this question, however, he was aware that the man was answering him.
“My wife is very tired after our long journey,” spoke the man in a soft weary voice. “Have you a room or a space anywhere we can stay? We are here for the census. We have travelled a long way, which has been very hard on my wife as she is about to have our first child. In fact, I think the birth is imminent. We must find shelter!”
The innkeeper had had to turn away a number of potential customers that day and was about to say he had no room for the man and his wife, when his own wife arrived by his side putting her hand on his shoulder to stop him from saying anything more.
“Poor dear!” she said softly, immediately taking pity on the young pregnant woman she saw before her in the strange clear light.
“Jacob! Make room for them in the stable!” she ordered forcefully.
“I am afraid there’s no room in the inn,” she continued, speaking to the man, “and I know that there’s not a room to be found anywhere in Bethlehem tonight, but we’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible in our stable if that is satisfactory to you and your dear wife.”
“Indeed, that is very kind of you,” he replied. “We have tried just about everywhere else I could think of with no success and we shall be grateful to have a roof over our heads, even if it is a stable roof.”
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The old donkey could not understand it! Surely he had not been asleep all night yet! He was certain it could not be much more than the middle of the night, yet there was what appeared to be daylight outside the stable. In addition, he could hear voices, which had disturbed his sleep. Then he heard footsteps approaching the stable door. These he recognised as belonging to his master. The man opened the door and entered, whereupon, he began to clear a space near the back of the stable.
“Humph! There’s no room for any more animals in here tonight, if indeed it is still night!” thought old Ahab indignantly as his master spread a generous layer of fresh straw on the floor of the stable.
“Humph! Now what’s he up to?” he mused, as the man placed a couple of old milking stools on the fresh straw in the space he had just cleared.
As Ahab was wondering about this, some more people entered the stable. He recognised the innkeeper’s wife, but she was accompanied by two people whom he did not recognise. There was a tall, rather weary looking man who was supporting a young pregnant woman. She settled gratefully on the straw with the help of her husband and the innkeeper’s wife. The latter told her husband to go back into the inn and fetch a bowl of hot water and something in which to wrap the baby when it arrived, which she said was going to be at any moment now.
Just outside the door stood a nervous looking young donkey.
“Humph! Are you with these people?” asked Ahab of the newcomer.
“Yes sir!” came the weary, nervous reply.
“Humph! Then you had better come in as well and join the party,” grumbled the older donkey. “Although there is little enough room as it is!” he continued. “Come and join me in my stall,” he said more kindly, moving over to one side of his stall to make room for the newcomer.
“Humph! Have you come far?” he asked.
“All the way from Nazareth,” replied his new companion. “We have been travelling……..”
Just then, they were startled by the sound of a baby crying.
“What on earth is all that racket?” grumbled one of the camels that had been asleep up to this moment and was none too pleased at being awoken so rudely.
“My mistress, Mary, has just given birth to her first child,” the young donkey said proudly. “Her husband Joseph the carpenter and I have got her here just in time!”
“Jacob……”, called the innkeeper’s wife to her harassed husband as he returned with the bowl of water and some swaddling clothes in which they had wrapped their own baby when he had been born a few years before. They had kept these for sentimental reasons, for they had not had any more children.
“Jacob, what are we to do? There is nowhere for the baby to lie except on the straw on the floor!”
Jacob scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he could not think of anything suitable in which the baby could lie.
“Humph!” snorted the old donkey. “Typical of him! No brains at all in his stupid head! If there were any, he’d be dangerous!”
He carefully eased himself backwards out of his crowded stall and made his way to the manger full of hay, from which the camels had earlier been feeding. He lowered his head so that his forehead was against the middle of the manger and gently pushed it towards the place where the mother and child lay.
“Well you clever old thing, you!” said the innkeeper’s wife. “Look, Jacob! Ahab is showing us just the very thing to make a crib for the baby. Empty out that old hay and put some more fresh straw in it.”
When this had been done to her satisfaction, she lay her own shawl on top of the straw and having bathed, dried and wrapped the child in the swaddling clothes, she placed him carefully into the manger and smiled at the now sweetly sleeping baby boy.
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The shepherd boy looked round in awe.
This was the first time he had been in the town of Bethlehem at night. Usually, at night, he would have been with the rest of the shepherds on the hillsides making sure their sheep were not troubled by wild animals, but tonight was the strangest night of their lives.
Timothy, which was the boy’s name, had been dozing in front of the fire with his father and uncles, while other shepherds took their turn to keep watch over the flock. Suddenly, they became aware of a strange glow in the sky and they could hear sweet voices singing in chorus all around them.
“Wh-what can it be?” asked his uncle Ruben in a shaky voice.
Timothy’s father and the rest of the uncles did not know and were frightened. They would have faced ferocious lions or wolves with far less fear, but this was something they could not understand and like many people before and since, they were afraid of the unknown.
The glow became brighter as it approached the now cowering group.
They became aware that the glow concealed the figure of a man.
This, however, did not calm their fears, for rather than a man carrying a light, which they could have understood, this man was the light, or the light was the man, they could not decide which.
“Fear not!” the angel commanded, for angel was what the apparition was.
“I bring you glad tidings of good joy.”
“Make your way into Bethlehem tonight, where you will find a newborn child who is to be ‘The Light of the World’.
You will not find Him in a palace, nor even in a rich man’s house. No! ‘The Prince of Peace’ you will find lying in a manger in a stable that is lit by a star. Go and worship Him, for He is The Son of God. Leave your flocks, for I promise you no harm shall befall them this holy night!”
With these words, the angel rose up, once more becoming a glowing light in the sky. This light was joined by more lights and there was the sound of beautiful music all around.
The shepherds arose and without question, along with the others who had been attracted back to the fire by the strange light, they had set off for Bethlehem.
“Where to now, Josiah?” Ruben asked of Timothy’s father.
“I am not sure!” replied the elder brother.
“I know where, father!” stated Timothy confidently.
“You do?” scoffed Ruben. “You have only been in Bethlehem once before and that was in the daylight, so how do you think you can find the place where the child is born?”
Timothy laughed. “That’s easy!” he stated, “ By following the star as the angel said,” he continued. “See! Over there!” He pointed to where the light glowed over the roof of a stable standing next to an inn.
“Timothy is right!” laughed his father. “Come on! Follow me!”
“You are sure we have not been followed?”
The question was asked for the umpteenth time by the dark-skinned man called Balthazar.
“I am certain!” replied his friend, Melchior. “I am sure the angel who warned us of the treachery of King Herod would have warned us again if there was any further danger.”
They had been travelling for a long time, having met far to the east of this land many months before.
Balthazar and Melchior were both wealthy men and very wise. They each studied the heavens at night and had become excited when they each, separately, discovered a new star, which they determined indicated a momentous event was about to happen in a land far to the west of their own.
With their servants, they had set out in a caravan to discover the location and nature of this event.
“Before you ask,” explained Uncle Billy, “a caravan was what they called a party of travellers with their camels and their transport such as ox carts etc. not a vehicle pulled behind a car!!”
Shortly after meeting on their own journeys, they were joined by a third learnèd man and his caravan, also travelling to find this wondrous event. This man’s name was Gaspar.
Between them, they pooled their findings and knowledge. They determined that they were to attend the birth of a great king. To find his place of birth, they were to follow the bright star which had just appeared in the heavens. This they continued to do until the star led them to a city called Jerusalem in the land of Judea.
“This must be the place!” they thought and so they set out to find the king’s palace which they surmised would be the most likely place for a great king to be born.
The king of Judea at that time was a man called Herod. When he heard that a group of wealthy travellers had arrived at his palace and wished to speak with him, he was intrigued to know what they wanted, so he granted them an audience.
“No!” said Herod, “There is no prince here and neither is there going to be as far as my wife and I are concerned!”
“That is very strange,” Gaspar mused, “for the star has been getting brighter as we neared your fine city and we were sure it had stopped here to indicate that this is the place.”
“When you do find the child, be sure to return to tell me where he is to be found so that I may also go and worship him!” Herod had said. The three wise men did not notice the scheming glint in his eyes as he said this, but later that night, as they lay in their beds, each had been visited by an angel who had confirmed that they were nearing the birthplace. However, king Herod, far from wishing to worship the child, was really going to have him killed, for he saw Him as a threat to his own kingship.
“You see,” said the angel, “Herod believes that a new king would overthrow him and rule in his place. Leave now in the night instead of the morning as you had planned, for Herod intends to have you followed when you set off. After you have left the city, head north to begin with, so the guards on the city walls will think that is where you have gone. Herod’s men will try to find you in that direction when they discover you have already left. I will send a sand storm to cover your tracks. You of course, will continue west once you see the sand storm approaching you from behind and when you have seen ‘The Prince of Peace’, you will return to your own lands by a route which bypasses Jerusalem by a goodly distance.
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“Humph! Now who is coming in?” thought Ahab in wonder.
Five men and a boy entered the stable uncertainly and gathered round where the baby lay.
The child’s parents, Joseph and Mary, were now sitting on the stools side by side, Joseph’s arm supporting his weakened wife. They smiled lovingly at the baby lying on the straw in the manger before them.
The small shepherd boy stepped forward and explained:
“An angel told us to come and see your baby. We are but poor shepherds who have little to give, but we hope you will accept this small gift for the baby?”
With these words, Timothy offered to Mary a sheepskin.
“It will keep him warm on these cold nights,” he explained.
Mary smiled at him and thanked them for the lovely and thoughtful gift, which she spread carefully over the sleeping child who seemed to appreciate the extra warmth it provided, for He smiled if His sleep.
There was a commotion at the door which attracted everybody’s attention.
“Humph! Oh my goodness, not more!” thought Ahab, regretting his earlier prediction that they would not be further disturbed that night.
Into the stable came three richly dressed men.
The innkeeper and his wife, the shepherds and the animals in the stable all moved to one side in awe as each of these newcomers in turn stepped up and knelt before the baby in His manger.
“We have travelled from afar to find this child,” said Gaspar. “We were led here by a star and an angel,” he continued. “The angel told us your son is to be ‘The Prince of Peace’, so we have brought Him gifts. The gift I bring is Gold to signify kingship!” he concluded, laying a small yet heavy chest before the manger.
“My gift is Frankincense!” said Balthazar. “It signifies deity, for He is surely ‘The Son of God’.”
“Myrrh is the gift I bring,” stated Melchior somewhat sadly. “You see, eventually, when He becomes a man, your son must die to show the world the way of love. When that time comes, embalm His body with this myrrh.”
Mary and Joseph accepted the gifts with meek gratitude but did not yet fully understand all that these strange happenings meant.
Ahab and the other animals continued to look on in wonder. Even when a few days later, everyone had been counted in the census and had left to go about their own business, Ahab remembered that strange night with a feeling of pleasure. He would recount the story of that night to any visiting animals that stayed in his stable and the pair of oxen who shared the stable with him never tired of hearing the story no matter how many times he told it.
Another strange thing happened to Ahab, though he himself never noticed it. After that night, he was never grumpy again and he never began speaking with the complaining moan: “Humph!”
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Uncle Billy picked up his guitar then and began to play and sing. The song that he sang was not as you might have expected the carol ‘Away in a Manger’, but one which he told us was his own composition called:
Hear the angels singing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Shepherds and kings, their gifts are bringing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Now on Earth the church bells ringing.
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
‘Twas early on Christmas morning, the cattle were lowing,
The angels were singing, “The Lord Christ is born!”
The shepherds on the hillside, the kings in the valley,
The stars up in the heavens sang “Praise on this morn!”
For they all came to Bethl’em on that first Christmas dawn,
And met in the stable where the Lord Christ was born.
Hear the angels singing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Shepherds and kings, their gifts are bringing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Now on Earth the church bells ringing.
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Over Joseph and Mary and their holy baby,
The beasts of the stable kept vigil that morn.
With the donkeys and oxen, proud camels were watching
The wonderful scene where Lord Jesus was born.
For they all came to Bethl’em on that first Christmas dawn,
And met in the stable where the Lord Christ was born.
Hear the angels singing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Shepherds and kings, their gifts are bringing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Now on Earth the church bells ringing.
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Now let us remember on the twenty-fifth of December
The reason we celebrate this glorious morn.
For The Lord sent His son to the Earth to protect us
And show us the way that Salvation is born.
And we’ll all go to Bethl’em like that first Christmas dawn
And meet in the stable where The Lord Christ was born.
Hear the angels singing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Shepherds and kings, their gifts are bringing,
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
Now on Earth the church bells ringing.
“Come! Come! The Lord Christ is born!”
After singing this song, the chorus of which we had picked up very quickly, we sang other carols in front of the still blazing fire, including ‘Away in a Manger’. We drank ginger wine which gave my stomach a lovely warm glow and ate hot chestnuts that we roasted in front of the fire.
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