Christmas (Stop and Smell the Baby Head!)

Darlene Love performing Christmas
(Baby Please Come Home) one final time on
The Late Show with David Letterman.

You know what I miss? Darlene Love singing Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) every year on The Late Show with David Letterman. In its absence, I’ve been watching this video of the last time she did it. It’s so perfect… her voice, the wall of sound, the set, her dress and hair… and when it starts to snow, I start to cry! Every time!! It’s just about the coolest, Christmas-y thing!!

And lest you protest that Christmas is NOT about snow and pop songs and glamorous ladies in gorgeous red gowns, consider casting this tune as a gospel song. See, Darlene Love loves her some Jesus. Her father was a minister, so of course she grew up singing gospel music. If you watch this video, you can see that she is completely on board with our Lord and Savior! I love the part where she says the Holy Spirit spoke to her through this song that we’re talking about right now!!!

And while Christmas Baby Please Come Home will never speak to me as pointedly and directly as it did Ms. Love, I hear it as an invitation from God to mankind—among the hustle and bustle of the season—to connect with Him. 

If you’re a Christian... forget all the cooking and shopping and wrapping and all that stuff that MUST get done before the 25th...  and snuggle up to Jesus personally. Lean in and get a good whiff of His immense love and grace.* Be the Mary in the Mary v. Martha story! You know that story in Luke: 

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 

Mmm... baby head... go on, take a whiff!!

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” 

And if you’re not a Christian, then... Baby, Please Come Home! Nothing would please Him more!

*Since the Christmas story is about Jesus as a baby, I just thought about how whenever I hold my friends Jim and Lisa's baby Charlie (pictured, right), I take a huge whiff of baby head! Who can resist?!!!

He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming – it came!

Our cards through
the years

So.... this might be the sourest Christmas thing you'll read all year, but don't worry – it ends well!! Here goes...

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I’m not proud of it, but I’ve been kind of obsessed with what Donald Trump is doing. What oddly inappropriate person is he appointing? What childish thing is he tweeting? What incredibly unpresidential thing is he doing? What colossal lie is he telling? But this is not how I want to live my life, and the other day I realized that if I allow this to continue, it’s going to flat out RUIN my Christmas!

I thought, “Someone ought to make a meme of Donald Trump as the Grinch and call it ‘the Donald who stole Christmas.’ ” And I’m a graphic artist – I could do it… One year our family Christmas card featured BILL as the Grinch! I’ve done all kinds of photoshop magic for our cards… but I’m not going to do the Donald as the Grinch….

Because, as the Whos down in Who-ville discovered, no matter what the big, grinchy orange guy does, Christmas is UNSTEALABLE!!! Right? He can be the biggest jerk in the world as he is wont to do, but… the no room in the inn, the baby in the manger, the star of Bethlehem, the shepherds and the wisemen… it all still happened!! And it's so much more than that story. It's the story that saves the world, man. Saves – present tense. It's saving it even as we speak!

The day after the election – I was just plum shattered. I know the results were good news for some people, but I was scared that a guy who just doesn’t seem very smart would have his finger on the red button. I was hurt for all the people that felt marginalized by the election results. And I was disappointed in Christian leaders who supported such a hater for president.* 

Anyway, that Wednesday, the only thing that consoled me was reminding myself over and over… that God is with us. He’s with us. He’s here. He’s real, and He’s with us. That’s what Emmanuel means, by the way – God with us. And that’s Christmas… and no one can steal it because it’s magnificent. It’s for every race, political party and gender... it's physical and also spiritual, and it’s now and also eternal. In the lovely words of the prophet Isaiah:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.

Can I get an AMEN everybody? 

*I realize too, that some Christians may be disappointed in ME… that my vote didn’t consider the rights of unborn children above all things… and I get that… I just feel like the other option is pro-life in other ways.