It was Christmas Eve and Max had just said good night to his best friend Danny,
after an evening of admiring the Christmas lights in their neighbourhood. His
watch said nine fifty and Max remembered his promise to be home by ten.  He
thought of his little sister Nina and how she was probably already in bed
dreaming of Santa Claus, just as he would have been doing just a few short years
before. He suddenly felt something akin to regret, and realized that even at
fourteen, he still missed the magic of being a little child at this time of
year. 

Standing outside his house, he gazed at the starlit sky and thought of the story
of the first Christmas. Was it too just a fairy tale like the one about jolly
old St. Nick? He thought of how his grandparents loved to talk of how things had
changed since they were kids, but had they really? Sure there were tons of new
things but wasn’t all the technology the result of education and a lot of hard
work by some very intelligent people?  In reality, what had really changed? 

How was Christmas day any different from any other? The stars were the same as
they had been every other night. The moon made the same journey across the sky.
The days were shorter at this time of year, but could anyone remember when it
had been any different? The same moon and stars that he saw tonight had shone
from the same sky two thousand years ago, only man had changed. 

Startled Max realized that he had just dismissed two thousand years of Christian
teaching as if it meant nothing, and suddenly he felt very small and even a
little foolish. Whether anything special had happened on that first Christmas or
not, the world was certainly a better and kinder place because millions of
people believed it had. He laughed as he made his was up the lane to home. No
wonder his parents called him “serious Max”. There were  presents under the tree
and a turkey stuffed just waiting for Christmas day – and yes there was magic in
the air.  Merry Christmas!