Christmas Chaos

^♫God rest ye merry, gentlemen,

  let nothing you dismay,

  I wonder why they didn’t include

  the ladies, by the way …^♫

The One-and-Only Mack, muddling up my dreams again.

“The song, Sir, is about angels visiting shepherds at night to announce the birth of Jesus.”

“And they don’t have lady shepherds?”

“(Sigh …) And why do you have to parody everything? Last year it was ‘Hark! Harold the Angel sing!’ And you thief that from ‘Charlie Brown!’ “

“At least this year I’m original!”

“Original or thief, I don’t care. I just want my beauty sleep!”

“Speaking of ‘original,’ what date is the original Christmas Day?”

“December 25^th. Why do you ask?”

“Because the Bible doesn’t say. It doesn’t even have something called ‘Christmas Day’.”

“Well, well!! Look who’s delving into the Holy Writ!”

“Curiosity, really. It just doesn’t make sense for a ruler to call a census in the dead of winter.”

“Checking out Luke, eh. Impressive! And even more impressive logic!”

“And not only that. There are some more obvious … er … contradictions.”

“Like …?

“You know, the whole ‘we three kings of orient are’ thing? Well, for one, they aren’t ‘kings.’ They’re called ‘wise men.’ Secondly, there’s no record of how many wise men there were. Could’ve been two. Could’ve been twenty. Could’ve been two hundred!”

“You’ve been doing your homework, haven’t you!”

“Indeed, Sir. I can also see these three lonesome royal figures starting out from wherever, reaching dune No. 2, whereupon they are set upon by desert raiders. Gold, frankincense and myrrh would have fetched a pretty penny, I fancy!”

“In other words, they would have had a security escort. A military detail.”

“Egg-zactly!!!”

“My, my, my!”

“But I still can’t quite figure out when Christ was born.”

“I can help you with that.”

“I expect you would. Why you think I harassing you?”

“(Expulsion of air)”

“Well … I’m waiting!”

“(Groan) Alright. We have to work forward from the conception of John the Baptist.”

“Hmm … okay. Tell me more!”

“Luke says in chapter 1, verse 5 that John’s father, Zechariah, was a priest belonging to the division of Abijah. These divisions served in the temple monthly, and his division equates to our month of June. That’s when the angel appeared to Zechariah and John was conceived.”

“Um hmm …”

“Jump ahead six months. Jesus is conceived and Mary visits Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth.”

“So … WAIT! Jesus was conceived in December … THAT’S how they got Christmas Day!”

“(Good grief!)”