Christmas Eve is here again. I have spent this day in several different countries in my life but whever we are this day it is filled with anticipation, anxiety, hope and fear. In the past, when I was younger I had such high hopes that were mingled with fear, because those hopes were often not realized. Now that I am much older, the years have taught me to lower my expectations and to revel in the small things, the continuity and the simplicity of a baby in a manger. Jesus came as a simple warm baby, the way each of us enters the world. Yes there was the fanfare of angels singing, but in that manger there was the smell of hay, animals, and new birth. Small things can be so full of enormous meaning. The candle on the table, the card from friends, the love of a spouse, the pressence of children.
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