Merry Christmas from the barn
It’s Christmas morning 2025 and yet it’s a strange one for our usually “all in” family. We did not put up any Christmas lights on the farm this year. We did not put up any reindeer decorations in the house. We only bought courtesy stress-free gifts. Our Christmas tree is a small re-plantable rosemary bush.
Some of this has been intentional, some for a lack of time, and I’m sure a good portion of it because we have no young children or even teenagers on the farm this year. Yet, when I look over to the barn early this Christmas morning, the scene is just as dramatic as ever, perhaps even more so.
A fearful teenage pregnancy. A man who should by custom, have had the girl stoned, or at least divorced her. A refugee family on the run in a foreign land. The bassinet—a makeshift cow trough in the back of the barn because there was no room in the inn. And yet into this unlikeliest of circumstances a tiny baby is born. It’s hope for that family that eventually is hope
for many to follow.
If we look to the barn this morning we can see that in the unlikeliest of circumstances, there is yet hope being born, even if it is small and fragile.
Whatever is going on in the relationship, there is hope for you. However bad the job is, there is hope for you. However powerful the habit, it can be changed. However bleak world events and ecological destruction look to us, there is still hope.
This day can be a fresh start. A new beginning. A chance to let go of what stands in the way. A chance to pick up something new. It’s a chance to have hope again. Even if it is as small and fragile as a new born baby.
In unlikeliest of circumstances, Merry Christmas from the barn.