Boys and their toys tell the Christmas story

My house is filled with boys right now — my husband Ronnie, my sons Ronnie and Scotty home from college and Scotty’s dog, Bear.

It is a typical day in the Kent household, where the boys outnumber the girl. The evidence that boys live here are everywhere in our home. Boys and their toys — balls, rope, and Frisbees for Bear — are all over my living room and deck. Fishing tackle and poles are propped in every corner. Football is on the TV constantly, unless there’s an Xbox game war raging.

In no other season of the year does it seem more appropriate to live in a world full of boys than Christmas because, after all, Christmas is all about a boy.

We forget that a lot this time of year. As shopping, baking and decorating consume our lives, the reason for the season sometimes gets pushed far into the background.

There is a reason for the season: the birth of Jesus. A simple story about the birth of a boy.

My sons always seemed determined to add a little more “boy” to the story of the birth of Jesus than the Bible allowed. Mary and Joseph arrived at the manger — the Fisher Price farm house; they did so not on a donkey but in the back of a Fisher Price pick-up truck. The part about angels heralding the birth seemed unrealistic to my boys, so plastic jet engines did flybys instead. Dead grass was brought into the house for the cows and pigs to eat; sheep seemed out of place for Middle Georgia boys. When Mary and Joseph took Baby Jesus and escaped to Egypt, they did so under the protection of the Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I would gently try to correct them at play time, not wanting to damper their enthusiasm but not willing to be part of rewriting the Bible either. But that usually caused problems for me. My boys would give me incredulous looks and then question me about how I could question God because it was obvious to them that God could do anything — he parted the Red Sea — so he could easily have a Chevy 4x4 delivered to Bethlehem.

I would marvel at their faith and pray for my own to be increased while thanking God for creating boys and giving them the extraordinary ability to accept the exceptional and ordinary at the same time.

Thankfully, for us, Jesus was willing to be part of the ordinary and the exceptional. He was born in a manger, entering the world like any other boy. His ordinary start on this earth was part of an exceptional plan since he was the Son of God sent to save us from our sins.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Merry Christmas.

Alline Kent can be contacted at allinekent@cox.net.

This story was originally published December 16, 2017 at 10:53 AM with the headline "Boys and their toys tell the Christmas story."