‘So, Momma tell us about Christmas again’, said Jakita and Gen as they crowded her in the lazy boy chair, Jakita cuddled by Momma’s side, Gen perched beside her, paws tucked below her body, Egyptian style. Who knows where Bad Boy Andy was…probably wreaking havoc in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile Charlie was lurking behind one of the kitty hotels, listening attentively, convinced no one could see, although she wished she was brave enough to join them.
‘Well, long ago, Joseph and Mary’, started Momma, but they stopped her, rather impatiently. ‘No, no, no tell us about the Baby Jesus,’ Jakita and Gen implored, ‘We love babies. Everybody loves babies.’
So Momma sighed and started again, only this time she took another tack. ‘Yes, Baby Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger.
An Angel of the Lord appeared to the Shepherds, who were tending their sheep that night, telling them the great tidings of Jesus birth and so they hurried off to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph with Baby Jesus as well as cattle, in the stable. Meanwhile, a mysterious light that turned in to a resplendent star shone, guiding the Three Wise men (hard to find three of those today), bearing gifts, came to see the long-awaited Messiah.’ But there is more because, well, Momma has lived forever, so she hears things.
Apparently, in Momma’s day, it was a well-known fact that on Christmas Eve Midnight, if the conditions were perfect, the snow gleaming from the moon and stars radiating beams of kaleidoscope light, if you went in to your barn, all the cattle would bow down and speak to each other about what was and is and ever shall be…..And everyone wanted to go to the barn at midnight at Christmas Eve but there was one catch (isn’t there always?). Every person who had been brave enough to walk that path had never lived to tell the tale.
secrets. He sure does look like a sceptic, eh?
It was rumored that a Great Uncle of Momma’s, who did not believe in stuff and nonsense, well, no one knows what happened to him, there no witnesses (except the cattle and they pleaded the Fifth Amendment), but he was found in the barn the next morning, as the cattle looked on sorrowfully, his eyes and mouth wide open, with a wound to his head, like he had tripped and hit his head on the way to meeting his Maker, God-Rest-His-Soul.
And one more person Momma heard of tried it, one of the Secret Society of Scryers and she nearly made it. She was already outside of the barn, on her way home, anxious to share what she had seen and heard but she was found in a heap, in a snow bank, frozen stiff, as the moon and the stars twinkled relentlessly, almost tauntingly, the secrets of the ages, still safe.
Wow, Momma, you sure have heard some fantastic tales. Makes us wonder if they are true but it does not matter, because you know there is more than one truth out there and truth, well it is highly over rated. Pondering the unknown formulates growth. But I tell you what, Gen and I are not going to any barn on Christmas Eve at midnight because we are not the scientific type, okay?
Still, we adore Baby Jesus.
