When the shepherds, the drovers and the innkeeper's guests had gotten a good look at the young girl and her baby, the one the star pointed out, and some time before the three gents from the east showed up with gifts, they took off with their bleating lambs their lowing cattle and their curiosity for the stuff of everyday life.
Joseph too left his wife and child, for a very short while. No abandonment, you see. Joe was being Dad.
The girl snuggled her baby, like the lovely young girl in the painting by Irish artist Adam Pomeroy, with protective love only a woman knows, while the baby's father went about in search of nourishment for his family.
Joe's Family was broke. Remember, the innkeeper let them stay in stable, but no where does it say he let them bunk for free. Joseph, Mary and the little guy were in town to buck up some taxes. This was not a vacation. Joe had to use his wits.
The First Christmas Breakfast was being put together by Joseph.
What would they have?
Scholars tell us that sugar was non-existent and that honey was only in homes of the wealthy. Dried fruits, nuts and grains were the staple diet of people in Roman occupied Judea.
Bread was made by women who also ground the grains. Joseph would have to buy bread, or try and get someone to offer up a few crusts.
I think that he beat it out into the wild and did some foraging for figs and olives to go with the curdled milk that was probably stored in the stable with the goats. He could dig up some wild onions to flavor up the crushed olives.
While his exhausted bride and son slept to gain strength, Joseph threw together a meal. That is what Dad's do on Christmas mornings.
Maybe it wasn't pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage, or an egg casserole with mushrooms, onions and peppers, but would guess that the man who put his wife on donkey to Bethlehem, watched with agonized joy as his son was born, while Mary endured the many hours of sustained torture thanks to the apple eaters, made the first meal for his family something very holy.
Our everyday lives have seemed to eclipse the sacred. Maybe the mundane, quotidian and dull things we do out love can help restore the mystery and glory of sacred.
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