The holidays are messy. Families are messy. People are stressed and in perpetual pursuit of the recreated perfect memory that was not but has become idealized. We do this to ourselves: debt, guilt, grief, depression, worry, frenzy, and then the lights go out, the trash is packed away, and the tree comes down.

It does not have to be that way.

The first Christmas was a mess, too. Shepherds were in the field and a group of angels scared the bejeezus out of them to declare the baby Jesus had arrived. "Fear not," they said before opening into a heavenly chorus.

In Bethlehem, a husband and very pregnant wife found no room at an inn. The mother had to give birth in a food trough and then spent the next several months entertaining random strangers swinging by to see her child. Many of you do not want people in your house until everything is tidy, mopped and dusted. Poor Mary was in a manger, then somewhere else, but definitely not her own home.

In Jerusalem, a group of........

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