The Christmas Story offers many points of entry, many characters with whom we can identify. Perhaps you have been like the young girl Mary, a confused teenager who finds herself pregnant. Joseph is an older man, also confused. After all, today's world is filled with stepfathers, who love and raise children who are not theirs biologically. Or maybe you, like Joseph, are one of those tired fathers, overburdened, forced to take a journey to Bethlehem, wondering how you will pay the taxes and provide for your family.
Biology seems to be only the beginning.
While they may look like us, act like us, they are always creatures of mystery as well. They have their own ideas about where life needs to go. Sometimes, we raise children who are not biologically ours. Somehow, miraculously, they have come to us from as far away as Russia and China and Korea, marvelous, mysterious gifts from the universe, all of them potential saviours, bearing hope for the future of the world. And we love them as surely and as deeply as any two people tied by biology.