Last evening we went to midnight service to pay our respects to the Lord on the night before His birthday.

After being seated my eyes -which seem to be blessed with this ability-wandered and focused on the pew in front of us. There sat a small boy of perhaps 5-6 years of age and he was holding a program for the service that had two snowmen on the front.

I looked at our program and it didn’t have any snowmen on the front. Is it possible that we had been short-changed–or was I merely experiencing another form of delusion?

I tried to get my act together, but jealousy and stress began to fill my mind. Which in a way is understandable as my mind is the weakest link in my body.

Any disease will attack the weakest link first.

This jealousy became un-controllable and began to escalate.

Much to my disappointment–mainly because it was Christmas Eve– the jealousy transformed itself into a low-grade rage. I assumed the greeter had given more to someone else than he had to us, who in this case was that little boy.

This was totally unfair.

I further rationalized the issue. We both had paid the same admission price and yet we had been subjected to inequality. I was in a state of quandary.

(FYI- the American state of Quandary is somewhere North of Wisconsin.)

After excusing myself , I tapped the boy on the shoulder, and we exited the sanctuary and went out into the lobby.

The boy was queried by yours truly as to how he had been given more than us–in addition this time was spent “sizing-up” my opponent.

I’m afraid my aggression had “ bitten off more that it could chew” this time as he was all of 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall. Misery seems to love company as I further speculated that the opposition was very fast.

It was apparent that my opponent was becoming distraught with the questioning, and said “Look mister, we have traveled several miles to see the Christmas Eve service, and we are missing part of the program, please let’s return to our seats.”

To which I blatantly replied, “not until you explain those snowmen.”

Well, I had carried the matter to the extreme limits as far as my opponent was concerned as he now let his temper rule his actions.

He feinted to his left and I to my right, which by the law of physics dictates

that we met eye to eye.

Somehow he got me into a headlock and applied tremendous pressure to the inner portion of my nose, which kind of hurt.

I blurted out, “ O.K., I concede.” ( which loosely translated means the same as, “ I don’t have the intestinal fortitude–guts in this case–to continue .”

Leaving me on the floor, his parting words were “ mister, if you‘d only learn to draw as good as me you too could have snowmen on your program .” Oh yes, he also wished me a “Merry Christmas”.

I returned to our pew a broken and more humble man who dared not allow his eyes wander to the pew in front of him.

The eyes were allowed, however, to witness the remainder of the Christmas Eve service.

We concluded our portion by singing hymns from our program which had an annoying disparity to the program in front of us.

Now, I’ll be the first to tell you, our pastor is a good and decent human, but he does have a flair for exhibiting too much theatrics in his sermons.

Bringing the event to an end he uttered “ Go in peace” which triggered him to release several white doves which flew out amongst the congregation.

This act was quite breathtaking except for one minor detail. The dove that ultimately perched itself on my shoulder had diarrhea.

Our next stop would be a Christmas Eve party and it very soon became apparent that I had more to share than just fellowship.

Although this is a humor article, it does have a moral.

The best way to eliminate stress during the holidays (or anytime else, for that matter). Rectify the issue that is the cause of your stress by not being afraid to confront it, irrelevant of its power.