IMPERFECT CHRISTMAS

My dad and I would drive out on Marsh Road with our saw. Our job was to bring back a Christmas tree for our living room. We did this year after year. We never found a perfect tree.

Now these were short-needle scrub pines, not the tree-farm grown spruces from up north.

Ours weren’t quite A Charlie Brown Christmas scraggy, but they were never perfect. Crooked tops, missing one side, two tops, misshaped branches, something always visibly off a bit.

That first Christmas wasn’t perfect either, was it? No room in the inn. The hard journey. A baby born in a stable. Mary and Joseph far from home.

That is not how we would have written the story. And yet, God has a way of taking the imperfect and transforming it, wouldn’t you agree.

The same happened each year with our imperfect tree. My sisters and parents and I would string lights and decorate with ornaments (and tinsel in those days).

Ugly transformed into beautiful. Imperfect taken to just right.