They’re still stuck in my head: “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Joy to the World,” “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! Is it really over? Christmas 2022 is history and the New Year has dropped. Does that mean all we have left is ice and gloom?
It might feel a bit like sailors who reach the stretch of water where they get stuck in the doldrums. There’s nothing to move them forward and usually, in the stories, they almost die of dehydration as they ration out sips of dirty barrel water. Maybe the first Christmas felt a little more like this.
We have one Jersey cow here on the farm. She recently had the cutest little brown calf. When I posted a picture of it, someone commented that it feels like something straight out of a manger scene. The perfect little calf, standing on wobbly legs like Bambi with its mother in the background lowing contentedly as she dished out cowlicks all over the wet hairdo.
What my picture didn’t show is the smell, the dirt, the cow slobber (and other fluids) soaking into my clothes, the spider webs, the cold air, the pokyness of the straw, the bloody mess and all the work left to do.
This contrasts dramatically with the shimmering Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, and the alarmingly manure-free animals of the porcelain set that proudly sits in front at my church where we can all gaze at its beauty.
I wonder if the sanitized version of Jesus’ birth has contributed to the misunderstanding of its reality. The squeaky clean version of the story overlooks the real emotions of Mary as she pondered these things the angel foretold, the real anxiety of Joseph needing to protect his betrothed, the real fear and excitement of the shepherds hearing from the angels, the real plan of God told from the beginning of time. We conjure happy feelings at the ‘‘most wonderful time of the year’’, forgetting the origin of the story when God promised there would be a Savior who would come to rescue us from our real problem – the consequences of sin.
When I came back the next morning to check on the little brown Bambi calf, he was so fluffy he had a totally new look. All the cowlicks were tamed and he was contentedly curled in the corner. As I was making sure he got a belly full of warm colostrum, I thought that this warm smell of a newborn calf, the milky newborn breath, the mix of straw, manure, and feed smell could be pretty charming if viewed correctly. If I focused differently, I was suddenly standing in my own Hallmark movie with my fluffy brown calf… I was just missing my hot chocolate.
A couple weeks ago, I had the beginnings of a beard and my wife said, “Ooo, you look like a Hallmark movie.” I couldn’t help but flex just a little and wish I was wearing a red plaid shirt. Wouldn’t it be nice if life could work out as well as a Christmas movie?
My wife asked me to watch one with her the other day… I tried, and then she told me I had to stop laughing. I just couldn’t help it. Everything is perfect –everything is just so. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cheese Wiz is a required snack of choice for the creative process.
There is no such thing as winter doldrums in Christmas movies. They “could” see the manure in the barn, but they instead see a romantic opportunity for hot chocolate. If cheesy Christmas movies can make hot chocolate the beverage of choice in literally every situation, I think we can choose what we want to think about these doldrums of winter.
Meet your farmer – Jonathan Gerdes. He and his wife run a farm-to-table raw milk dairy in Caledonia, Minn. If he isn’t in the barn, you can find him dating his wife, playing with his kids, leading youth group, or flying in the sky. Visit gerdesfreshfarm.com for more info.
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