A 'terry cloth' Christmas

I know the weather we're having just before Christmas in north Georgia is more spring like than winter like, but a few days ago it was pretty chilly.

It was on one of those mornings that I chose to hop out of my cozy warm apartment and get something I had forgotten out of the car, wearing my terry cloth bath robe. I knew better than this, knew that a terry cloth bath robe would not shield you from the chill, but did so anyway and suffered the consequences.

Terry cloth does not save you from the cold, as I had also found out at age 12 on a hillside in front of Grove Park Methodist Church on Bankhead Highway in Atlanta.

"So what were you doing as a kid clad in terry cloth in front of a church on a bitter cold late December evening?" you are probably asking.

The answer is simple: I was a shepherd.

Not only was I wearing a terry cloth robe, my head was wrapped in a terry cloth towel to represent the head dress those stalwart animal keepers wore in the First Century A.D.
Three Sunday School classmates and I had been chosen to represent the shepherds who were watching their flock and who were overcome with wonder and fear when the host of angels appeared to announce the birth of the Christ Child.

I have to say, all things considered, with us wearing that material that was never intended to keep a body warm, that we carried the portrayal off reasonably well, but we honestly wondered and feared that we would freeze to death before it was over with and we could go back inside the church. We portrayed the second Chapter of Luke and it opened with the verse, "It came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed," it was announced bravely over the church sound system by our pastor, his voice challenged by the cold wind that blew across the hillside.

Verse Eight was our cue: "And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night."

Now, I have to say here that we were wearing a bit more than terry cloth.

Our feet were covered with heavy socks and shoes, and we had on thick shirts and corduroy pants under those thin robes, but when that wind whipped that hillside, the extra clothes were not that much help. Angels are, of course, exempt from earthly temperatures, but the angels that appeared in our Nativity wore thick wool blankets over their heavenly array.

The audience of parents and church members accepted this lack of authenticity because of the weather. After all, they were cold too.

I have to give them credit though, they stuck it out like we did, but we all were glad to hear Verse 20: " And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them."

That marked the conclusion of our little pageant, and also signaled a hasty exit from that bitter December wind and into the warmth of the fellowship hall, where hot chocolate and warm home baked cookies were waiting.

I praised and glorified that hot chocolate and that warm cookie and was glad to be inside the church instead of in front of it in the cold, but the true purpose and meaning of Christmas was not lost on me that evening.

Joy to the World.

(Jerry Gunn is a reporter for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, MAJIC 1029, SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET, and AccessNorthGa.com.)