By Vicki Bahr 
Now that I’m older, my head is understandably full of memories and wish-i-could-go-backs, and I sadly realize that I spent entirely too many holidays promising myself that next year would be better.
Next year, the baby will be sleeping through the night and I won’t be so tired.
Next year, I’ll find the perfect surprises to wrap perfectly and place perfectly under the perfectly decorated tree, and the electric train will be fixed.
Next year, the gravy won’t be lumpy, the turkey won’t be dry, the green bean casserole won’t taste like something is missing, and the pie crust won’t be overbaked.
Next year, the outdoor lights will all be working, and I will figure out a way to spread the boughs and fix that gap right in the center of the Christmas tree.
I don’t understand why everyone else’s tree looks so full and festive, and other people’s children behave and don’t argue about wearing the clothes their mothers pick out for them, or pick their noses at the dinner table.
Next year, they will be older and behave in church, and no one will have a runny nose or have a random fever or cry because they didn’t get the “only thing in the whole wide world” they wished for.
Now that I’m a grandmother nine times over, I smile at those long-ago memories, those years when little eyes lit up as they watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, even though it was way past their bedtime, and our younger daughter swore she saw Rudolph’s shiny red nose blinking outside her bedroom window as he flew past, and all her siblings rushed into her room to confirm her findings even though they were well past the ages to still be looking for Rudolph.
I remember the year we were right in the middle of the Christmas service at church, and our baby started crying. The preacher stopped his sermon as I was trying to tiptoe quietly out, and loudly proclaimed that I shouldn’t leave, reminding the congregation that was exactly how the first Christmas sounded. A baby crying was the beginning of it all.
Now, I realize how it was that very first Christmas, when Mary and Joseph must have wondered, “Why now, when we are away from home? Why now, when there are no rooms at the inn, and we can’t even find a decent place to lay our baby boy? Why here, with the smells and the sounds of animals all around us, and we can’t even rest, when there are visitors and nowhere to seat them, nothing to feed them, and no way to make things better?”
And yet, that very first Christmas was perfection. And every year after that one, the stable and the baby and the surroundings would be heralded and celebrated.
No, next year will never be perfect.
Blessed Christmas.
by Melissa Fenton 
by Jen Feener 
