Chaotic Christmas

We are ending the year with so much gloom hanging over our country and much of the world.

- BOO CHANCO

2025 had been a chaotic year.Never ending wars, mass killers randomly shooting at people, incorrigibly corrupt and power-hungry politicians stealing our money and even Mother Nature afflicting us with earthquakes, floods and epidemics.

We have this idyllic and peaceful picture of the first Christmas in our Nativity sets. But the first Christmas was anything but peaceful. The first Christmas was incredibly troubled.

Just ask Mary and Joseph. The Virgin Mary was pregnant and that's difficult to explain or understand. Her husband-to-be was concerned and didn't know what to do. An angel told him it is okay because it was ordained by God. By faith, Joseph believed.

So, Joseph married Mary and as Mary neared her due date, the Roman government ordered them to go to their hometown for a census. A Catholic church's website figures the one-way trip may have taken a week or ten days, and perhaps longer.

Remember that Mary was close to the end of her pregnancy. They had to travel about 100 kilometers more slowly than normal on foot and donkey.

When they arrived in Bethlehem, there were no rooms left at the inns. Mary gave birth in a stable with farm animals around them.

Then they had to flee to Egypt because the murderous King Herod, in a fit of jealousy after hearing the Messiah was born, ordered the slaughter of male infants in Bethlehem. The Holy Family had to live as refugees in Egypt for years until Herod died.