Advent Story: An Inconvenient Christmas

The year 2000 was my youngest daughter's first Christmas with the family in America. She was two and a half, and I wanted it to be perfect. After the kids finally went to sleep the night before, I stayed up very late to arrange Christmas just so, as parents of small children do. After about an hour's sleep, my husband woke me up to help him with a nosebleed. The bathroom already looked like a murder scene. We couldn't get the bleeding stopped, and after a couple of hours we decided to go to the emergency room. We couldn't leave the kids, though, and called his parents for help. They did not respond. It was almost 5AM when my mother-in-law awoke and agreed to come and stay while we went to the hospital. We asked her not to let the kids see the bathroom.

The rest of the morning was spend trying to stop the bleeding under the care of people who weren't happy about working the night shift on Christmas morning. We got home about 9AM to find the children had seen the bathroom, and were restricted from opening the gifts under the tree. Oh, what a wonderful impression we made on the baby about Christmas in America! My husband went to bed, and the kids opened their gifts in a hurry, because I had to leave for work.

Christmas Day at the radio station was all holiday music, which meant every Christmas song we had. I was feeling sorry for my husband, for the kids, for my mother-in-law, and even for my sleepy self as Christmas was a long way from the perfect image I had. Then I played The Oak Ridge Boys' song "The Most Inconvenient Christmas." I thought, yeah, that's what this one is. The song starts out with a tale of a holiday in which everything goes wrong, like the one I was experiencing. Then there's this part:

The most inconvenient Christmas was the first.

A young girl expects a child she can't explain

Forced to walk a hundred miles

Just to give birth in the hay

While the king at that same hour

Fearing challenge to his power

Sends his troops to track them down

And wipe them out

Whatever petty problems we have are nothing in comparison. The nosebleed, the hospital, the lack of sleep, and grandma's 5AM babysitting are all just a memorable story to tell now, while the hardships Mary and Joseph endured that first Christmas leave a legacy that means the world to people today. So I no longer expect Christmas to be perfect. But because of Jesus, it's always joyous.

D Holly

2011