A biblical missive

'Oh, and we have had a baby, if you hadn't heard, called Jesus. Well, when I say "we" have had a baby, perhaps that's not quite accurate...'

This is the time of year when we get Christmas family newsletters from people we haven't seen for a while, telling us all about the achievements of children of theirs whom we have probably forgotten about, and going through their year's news in a way that tends to leave us a bit silent afterwards.

There is an assumption that these Christmas newsletters are a modern innovation. Not so. They go way back, as far as the earliest Christmas. Recently there has come to light what may be the earliest of all, the first Christmas family newsletter from St Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus. It is clearly written when Jesus was a year old, and throws a refreshing slant on Biblical life.

Here is a goodly sample...

"Hello, everyone. Well, what a year! Mary and I have been up to our necks in it! The carpentry trade has been booming like never before, and I have had commissions from all over the place – even Egypt! Oh, and we have had a baby, if you hadn't heard, called Jesus. Well, when I say 'we' have had a baby, perhaps that's not quite accurate...

Maybe I should start at the beginning. Last year, as you know, Mary and I got married and we were settling down quite happily at Nazareth. I had set up a small carpenter's shop in the back of the house, and although Mary had talked about taking a job and getting out of the house a bit, I wasn't sorry that she hadn't, because she wasn't always very well, especially in the mornings.

It was me who usually got out in the mornings, down to the timber yard to look over what they had got, order a few bits and bobs, get some nails, that sort of thing. Then I'd go back home and get on with work. Well, this particular day, I came back before lunch and Mary said she had had a visitor when I was out, a gentleman caller. This sometimes happened when people wanted carpentry jobs doing, so I asked if he left an order. 'No,' she said, 'he said I was going to have a baby.'

Well, it seemed a bit odd, a total stranger coming in and saying something like this, so I asked if it was the doctor, and she said no, he was more like an angel from on high. Furthermore, he had told her that the father of the baby was going to be God, and it was then that I realised that Mary must be under some strain, because she was talking such rubbish, so we did get the doctor in, and he said she was going to have a baby, so that bit was true, and I asked him if he knew who the father was going to be, and he looked at me rather oddly and said it wasn't a doctor's job to identify the father, and if I didn't know, he didn't know.

Well! I thought I'd keep quiet after that, and as far as I was concerned, it was my baby anyway, so I just got on with things, and Mary got bigger, and when they use the expression 'big with child', they really know what they are talking about! I got cracking with my side of the business, ie I started making a nice little cot out of some cedarwood I had left over – it's a hard timber to work, but lasts for ever, so if we have lots more children it'll come in useful!–- and then came the blasted decree from Caesar Augustus!

Well, I don't need to tell you about that decree – everyone was mucked about by it, not just us – but having to go off to Bethlehem in December, just when the baby was due, that was a killer, and of course there was no accommodation anywhere and we ended up roughing it in a stable, not much of a stable at that, the manger was all broken and cracked, so I had a go at mending it and when the innkeeper saw it, he said he would accept doing the job instead of paying for accommodation. The thing about these mangers is, they've got a long pole which runs right along the front, and if it's positioned badly, the oxen and asses lean on it at the wrong angle and it quite often breaks – still, Mary says I always go on too much about the details of my jobs and no-one's interested, so I'll leave it there!

Anyway, then the baby was born, and after that we went to Egypt and then got back to normal...

Oops! Mary's been reading this over my shoulder, and says: Tell them a little more about the baby if you don't mind, and a bit less carpentry!

So I'll start another sheet."

Which we can bring you tomorrow