Tonight, we finally got our Christmas tree up and trimmed – the tradition is the tree goes up right around Anna’s birthday on the fourth which is usually during the first week of Advent. I’m not sure why it didn’t go up the first week because Anna had long practices for show choir and I had some long nights at Salvation Army. We had two concerts to begin this week and last night was Mosaic. We were supposed to have a board meeting, but because of sickness we cancelled. The end result is the Christmas tree is getting decorated.

On a side note – while Anna has an early December birthday, Pam would sometimes wrap Anna’s birthday presents in Christmas paper – oops! [continued after pictures.]

My job (Dale) is to put up the tree (artificial) and put on the lights. The main three sets of lights are blue, purple (the colors of Advent) and green (God’s love goes on and on like the green of the evergreen.) It wasn’t easy to get lights in those colors – but that is another story. We also have some novelty lights (mini-bubble lights, teddy bears, snowflakes (which we got for our first Christmas), lanterns (that aren’t working this year), and some Disney characters. In addition, Pam and I both have some lighted ornaments (a nativity, a church, and a patriotic/military.)

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The first ornaments are the children’s first ornaments then it is a treasure hunt for the Nutcracker’s ornaments. I got a set of ornaments from the ballet Nutcracker. The girls love to see who can find Clara. Then, I (Pam) and the children put what you can find on the tree. Our tree has all kinds of ornaments from antique balls to Star Wars ornaments. Yes, we have a couple of Star War ornaments. We even have military ones too. Each year we look an ornament for each child that has a memory of the year past. When the Dale and I got married we did not have ornaments and someone gave us ornaments they were going to throw out. We decided to make sure our children had ornaments for their Christmas tree when they get married.

Another tradition in trimming the tree is to play Christmas music while we decorate. Tonight’s selection is Tran-Siberian Orchestra – The Christmas Attic.

As we were driving home for Thanksgiving we began talking about Christmas. Rebecca and Anna were talking about setting up our family nativity which is made by PlayMobile (a toy manufacturer). To prepare for Advent our children have done a progressive nativity – keeping in mind how the Bible describes the Christmas story. For example, this morning, the angel has come to Mary. In our preparations for this year, one of them asked about when wise men saw Jesus. That is one of those facts that is not known, at least according to the biblical accounts. We will never know till we get to heaven. As things quieted down Dale said,” Just think your mom knows all the facts about the Christmas story now.”

There are several points of the Christmas story that have been handed down through the generations. We would call this folk theology. There is a difficulty where folk theology meets what the Bible describes. To say the least there are things which we believe about the Christmas story that are not in the Bible. Perhaps we may have gotten an idea from a Christmas carol, such as “We Three Kings.” The Bible doesn’t tell us how many kings or wise men visited Jesus. We do know that they brought three gifts. We many even think that Jesus was born on December 25th. The reality is that we don’t know when Jesus was born, but I do think it’s in important that we commemorate the day. “Away in the Manger” tells us that the baby Jesus never cried. The truth is the only way a baby has to communicates is by crying.. Remember Jesus was not only 100% God, but also he was 100%, human. The Bible tells us that Jesus knows the pain and trials that we know as humans. Even in the book of John we are told Jesus cried. The original point of the wise men is still up for debate. Were the wise men at the nativity? We don’t know.

We need to be careful what we take as facts and what is not. If you read the Bible carefully you will see there are many unanswered question about Jesus’ birth. These unanswered questions do not negate the biblical fact that Jesus was born over two thousand years ago, to redeem the human race, to save people from their sins, and to heal the broken relationship between God and his creation.