Oh how we love Aunt Mary...Many of you out there in MommyLand have already come to know and adore her for her propensity to fall asleep on park benches and refer to herself in the third person. For those Mommies who haven't had the pleasure of meeting our wonderful Aunt Mary, click here for a little background.She's written us a Christmas Eve letter that we just HAD to share...because she is that awesome.
Merry Christmas Moms! We love you loads...
xoxo
K&L-------------------------------
Aunt Mary woke up this morning with this meditation circling in her brain. MommyLand has its own unofficial holiday -- Christmas Eve -- and this is why.
In the Christian story, a young unwed woman gets pregnant (are you with me so far?) This woman, let's call her Mary, gets married off to a young man named Joseph. In the grand tradition of gospel writing, Mary's life gets edited out. She goes on this donkey roadtrip with Joseph to sign up at the Census and has her baby.
And so Aunt Mary asks: Why did Mary have to go in the first place? Couldn't Joseph find his way by himself? Did he forget to fill out the form and mail it back? Couldn't he find his way there without a co-pilot? Did Joseph put off sending out a reservation for a room until it was too late? Or did they have to stop too many times on the road for Mary to pee and got there too late? Of course things go wrong. The story says they end up in a stable. Why isn't she home? Did the angel give her a wrong due date? Weren't there any experienced women or midwives around to help her? Was she in labor the whole way, or one of the lucky few who go "oops my water broke, come and catch the baby"? what information did she have about childbirth? Was she present at Elizabeth's delivery? Was Jesus one of those babies in a hurry to come, or one who gets stuck in the birth canal for what seems like weeks?
Dear The Guys who wrote and translated the Bible: It would have been nice to know at least some of this, dontcha think?
Anyway, if you have a moment to think today, thank Mary for all she went through. She knows your pain. And this is a day for mommies to celebrate because -- at the end of the pain and the worry and the mess --there is a little miracle waiting for you ('til the reality hits, anyway)
Happy holiday wishes and much love to all the mommies in MommyLand. May you have time to breathe in the coming days, may your loved ones be safe, and may your holiday decorations stay in place and the diapers stay on until late tomorrow afternoon. Anything else is a miracle.
xoxo
Aunt Mary
(c)Herding Turtles, Inc. 2009 - 2010
Bless you, Aunt Mary! I've often wondered the same on several of those issues regarding the whole donkey trip. hmmmm Merry Christmas!!! May Santa find you nice and not too naughty. hee hee
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and awesome as usual, Aunt Mary. My first Christmas as a mother I was 8 months pregnant with my own beautiful boy. A church lady had me read the part about Mary being great with child and riding a donkey from home to Bethlehem. I wept. Not just because of the Savior, but because for the first time I appreciated the sacrifice that faithful woman made to be the mother of the Son of God. No wonder some of His last thoughts were for her. I'm thankful for her, for Him, and for the sisterhood of mommies.
ReplyDeleteYou know, some of your readers are dads too :)
ReplyDeleteDon't we wish it were as easy as "the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son"!
ReplyDeleteP.S. She just gave birth, why didn't Joseph wrap Him in swaddling clothes?
Can you IMAGINE, with the heightened sense of smell that accompanies pregnancy, riding a DONKEY? I wonder how many times she hurled or gagged. Poor girl.
ReplyDelete--kate in Michigan
Aunt Mary - you are wonderful and amazing and awesome. I actually don't really know my aunts (long family weirdness), can you adopt me? Thanks!! xoxo
ReplyDeleteThis is my first exposure to Aunt Mary, and I'm a little scared.
ReplyDeleteI do believe..I am Aunt Mary.
Merry Xmas to you both. HOw I wish I knew to work a blog like you do.
You both are the shiz.
At the very least, I know that Mary HAD to go to Bethlehem in order to fulfill the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), the City of David...so,I guess that's God the Father's doing. The rest, no room reservations, etc. That's on Joseph. Thanks, Aunt Mary, for the chuckle.
ReplyDelete