I wonder as I wander out under the sky why Santa Claus got run over by a reindeer.  It came to pass on a midnight clear – or maybe it was one foggy Christmas Eve - when the three kings of Orient were rockin’ around the Christmas tree on a not-so-silent night in the little town of Bethlehem.  While the world was roastin’ chestnuts o’er an open fire and having a blue, blue Christmas angels did we hear on high, sweetly singing “ding dong, merrily.” 

And as the faithful came joyfully and triumphantly there arose a clatter on the rooftop and heaven and nature sang, and heaven and nature sang, and oh, did I tell you that heaven and nature sang?  They sang about Tannenbaum and Mannheim Steamroller and fa-la-la-la-la on a day when the weather outside was frightening.  You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry, good king Wenceslas, lest you miss the first noel the angels did say, that noel that they sang in tune with the rum-pa-pum-pum of the little drummer boy away in the manger.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, all you kids from one to ninety two; even as the days are hastening on by prophets seen of old when loving hearts enthrone him.  May you hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell in excelsis Deo.  And tho’ it’s been said many times, many ways in the bleak midwinter, it bears repeating:  He is born, the holy Child.  Play the oboe and bagpipes merrily!

Perhaps your Christmas, like mine, is a unique mixture of sacred and secular, of mistletoe and mangers and a star shining o’er Bethlehem’s plain and twinkling lights on a tree of cedar or fir.   Even so, as we arrive at that Holy Night when God became flesh, may we join with certain poor shepherds in joyful praise.

Creede Hinshaw