A trip to Bethlehem

The mornings are brisk and the leaves
are changing. Fall is here and a wonderful
season is being ushered in. No, not Thanksgiving
but Christmas. In the past I had been
quite critical about the marketing
practices that brought Christmas
to the shelves of the retail giants as
soon as Halloween candy had been
passed out. Truth is, the Christmas
season historically has begun. The
thought that Mary and Joseph arrived
in Bethlehem just in time to
give birth to Jesus is met with some
skepticism and the Bible does not
depict the arrival date. It is more
likely that the trip of ninety miles that was
walked by a young pregnant wife took days
to accomplish, and Mary and Joseph had
possibly arrived in Bethlehem about this
time of year thus this would be beginning of
the Christmas season.