be like Jesus

I tend to tune out when the Pastor gets all Bible-ish, but not today. I paid attention!

Today, the Pastor (who has no doubt not bought me anything) argued that December 25 is not the day to give me a Christmas present.

First of all, he said, there's no real proof that was Jesus' birthday. OK, but who cares?

If anything, he said, it would be more appropriate to give me something on January 6, because that would approximate the date the Magi came to visit the baby. ????? Now I'm beginning to wonder if he's making this stuff up. There's no proof that Jesus was born on December 25, but we can figure out the Magi would have come 12 days later? Huh? This is quite possibly the worst abuse of his God knowledge I've seen.

While I'm not convinced, nor do I actually care enough about the specifics to research it myself, I began to wonder: what would Jesus do?

Would Jesus have wanted a gift on his birthday? There's already quite a bit of fuss on that day, and let's face it, if he's having to sleep in a stable, are there really any good stores open? Anything besides Walgreens? And if someone's going to spend the money, would you want just whatever tacky thing they decided to get you at the last minute?

Waiting until January 6 would have been a much better day for Jesus to receive a gift because, as everyone knows, babies are prettier at day 12 than day one. I've had a baby. And on day one, he was mostly just red-faced and ticked that he'd had to surface. A couple of weeks in, and the pictures of the whole gift exchange would be much better. This is probably why when you see a Nativity Scene everyone looks so nice.

While there is no way the Pastor could have convinced me Biblically or scientifically, he could convince me retail-ally. I'm not a scholar, but I know shopping. My only question was, if I wait until January 6, will I get a much better gift than what I would have received on December 25? OK, I'll take what's behind door number two.

Pastor, if you are reading this, I'm officially giving you notice you may give me my (much more spectacular) Christmas present on January 6. Of course, you'll probably have to take me to dinner that night too. I've already put it on my calendar.

And I can't wait to see what kind of argument he comes up with for Valentine's Day.