It's become one of the few traditions I hold to, a Christmas Eve post quoting Dalton Trumbo's version of the Christmas Story from Johnny Got His Gun. I want to add a quick quote here I believe I posted a short time ago from Joe Boyd's blog on his qualms with Christmas, which I share, and how he is working through his issues: I see everything wrong with Christmas. Trust me. It seems to me that the polar opposite of cynicism could be sentimentality. Stanley Hauerwas, a theologian hero of mine, says that sentimentality, not atheism, is the greatest enemy of the church. He equates sentimentality with practical atheism, saying that when we no longer truly believe the gospel we substitute the reality of the Jesus event with meetings, songs and patterns that create "warm feelings" to replace honest conviction. Living in a world without sentimentality or cynicism seems unrealistic, and frankly undesirable to me. However, allowing our cynicism or sentiment to control us seems like a plan for disaster. I committed tonight to be less cynical this Christmas and challenged the sentimental people to pull back enough to have fresh eyes to see beyond nostalgia toward the remarkable claim that a baby entered human history on a secret mission to destroy evil with the power of good. That was written on November 29, and in the past four weeks or so it's been my goal to look at Christmas with fresh eyes, through the eyes of my children, without losing focus of "to us a child is born." I've succeeded at times, failed more often, and don't know if it's been worth it. Nevertheless, I tried, and will continue to try, to live between two worlds, one with eternity in my sights, the other with sin and disease and tears and pain being overcome by my hope in Christ. Now, to quite possibly my favorite (and probably the most realistic) rendering of the Christmas story, take it over Dalton: She (his mother) had a marker in the Bible and she opened it now to the place that was marked and began to read again. She read the story of the Christ-child of the baby Jesus and how he was born in a manger...All the people were going to Bethlehem because it was tax time and they had to appear at the court house and register and pay up...Joseph had to do a lot of chores before he could start out and Mary his wife was pregnant and couldn't help him so they were late...As soon as they got into town Joseph began making the rounds of cheap rooming houses. He wasn't much of a success at making money and they only had enough to pay taxes and one night's rent...Then Joseph began to talk very seriously to the hotel manager. See here he said I've come a long way and I've got my wife with me and she's going to have a baby. Look at her out there on the donkey, you see she's just a kid and she's scared...(Hotel manager talking)It'll be an awful mess if she has a baby on the premises, people who can't afford them shouldn't have babies anyway but what are you going to do about it...I don't mind telling you I hope very much she doesn't have the baby here tonight because it'll upset my guests if she screams and they're all very high class people including three Roman congressmen...Oh I almost forgot, don't light any fires out there in the barn because in my insurance it says they're forbidden...Back in the manger Joseph lighted a lantern and fixed up a nice bed on the hay and Mary lay down on the bed and had her baby...