Updated: Dec 25, 2018

Christmas morning 1970! I remember our tree. It was really big with lots of glass ornaments. Icicle tinsel was strung all over it like glistening silver spaghetti. Wow! What a sight to behold as I crept down the stairs. It was so early it was still dark out. The tree looked beautiful as it shimmered and sparkled with multicolored lights blinking as if in song.
As I rounded the corner, I saw it…the best Christmas gift ever! It was a bike! My mom heard me get up. She told me the bike was from my dad!
I didn’t remember my dad because I lived two thousand miles away from him. My parents divorced while I was still a baby. My mom re-married and we moved to Illinois. But here it was, a shiny new bike with a banana seat! Just what I wanted as a six-year old kid!
I really liked the bike, but all I could think about was that it was from my dad! I studied the handwriting on the tag carefully. Was it really his writing? Did he come to my house and drop it off himself, I wondered? I imagined my dad standing in my living room. I knew he really must love me to come here and do that. My dad was my hero! He still is, even though he has gone home to glory.
I think of the shepherds out in the fields when the angel of the Lord told them of the most spectacular event in human history, God born as man….
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring y