Clip-clop, clip-clop.
A myriad of stars shone down on the desolate country side, on a mystical, moonless early winter night.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
The celestial bodies cast their muted glow on two weary travellers far below them, as they walked through the night toward their destination. One of them, the woman, sat upon a donkey, while the man walked along beside them, guiding the beast with one hand on its crude reigns. The woman was full with child, seemingly ready to be delivered at any moment. She swayed gently to the pacific rythms of the donkey as it walked along in the cool night.
"How much further, Jim?"asked the woman in words hung heavy with exhaustion and anxiety, although she was clearly trying her best to remain calm.
"Only a little while longer, dear," the man replied, calmly, assuringly.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Jim retreated back to the thoughts and worries that he had been preoccupying himself with in his mind. He wondered if it really were only a little while longer until they arrived at the village called Scranton, where he had been told in a dream he was to take his fiancee to give birth. He had never been to Scranton before, but he knew of the area. He hoped that the village had a hotel or some place where he could get a room. More than that, he hoped he could find a rabbi, or a physician, someone to help his fiancee Pam, who he was certain could deliver any moment now.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Pam looked down at her fiancee. She saw his furrowed brow, and recognized it immediately. It seemed to have been permanently fixed in that position since she first told him that she was pregnant. She knew he was worried. She knew that the whole situation was just crazy. It was all so much, so soon. They had only been together for a few months when Pam had received the news. She was to have a baby. A miraculous conception had taken place. She doubted it, even denied it at first, despite the divine messages she had been receiving in her dreams, but as the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, the signs presented themselves, and faith (or lack thereof) gave way to sight and Pam could doubt no longer. So here she was, a young woman, not even married yet. She was frightened, as any young mother-to-be would be, and she still had so many questions, but at the very least she knew she had her wonderful husband-to-be with her. She didn’t know what she would do without him. He was her rock, her comfort and her protector. He had been her support and encourgement all through her pregnancy. He had promised her that he would stay with her, and that she would be safe, and that he would never leave her no matter how crazy it got, no matter what other curves life was going to throw at the two of them. And in her heart, she believed him. Just rehearsing these thoughts in her head made Pam physically relax, and she drew in a deep breath. She looked to the horizon. Surely the town is just over that hill, she thought, she hoped...

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Jim thought about stopping, and giving the donkey a rest. They had been travelling since early that morning, with relatively few breaks in between. But he knew that time was of the essence, and he felt they couldn’t afford to waste any of it. He couldn’t have Pam going into labour out here in the wilderness. He had no idea how to deliver a baby. Jim had never been with a woman any more than Pam had been with a man. He had never seen a woman and was sure he didn’t know where to even look for the child if it did start to come. This child better be worth all this trouble, he thought. The mysterious child. The miraculous child. The child who Jim knew wasn’t his. He had kept the law and had not known her sexually before she got pregnant. He had hardly even kissed her before she had broke the news to him. True as that was, it wasn’t easy convincing other people of that fact. Back home where they were known, and where it was known that they were not married, they were constantly given unwanted attention from onlookers. They glared at the couple with condemning eyes. They judged them with their glances. It was those times that Jim found the most difficult. It was during those times that he felt that urge rise up again. That urge that first hit him the night he had the first dream about the child. He remembered waking up with a start, covered in sweat and shaking with fear. The urge that told him to saddle his camel and just leave. Run away. Run to Egypt, run to Asia, run somewhere, anywhere. He knew that with his carpentry skills he could get work just about anywhere he went. But when he gave it serious thought he realized he knew he could never do that. He had been Divinely charged to stay with Pam, and he had realized that no matter how scared he was, no matter how uncertain he was about the future, he was going to stay by her side, and love her and care for her with all his strength and might, because that was what she deserved and deep in his own heart, it was what he wanted to do. It was the strength which grew out of that love for Pam that gave him the ability to move on through this night, away from those glaring eyes, and towards the destination he was charged to get to.

Clip-clop. Clip-clop.
Suddenly Jim stumbled. The fatigue was taking over him. He wasn’t sure he could go on much longer. He just needed a few minutes. To rest, to sleep. I’ll just tell her I need few minutes, he said. But just as he was about to speak he heard her voice break the silence of the night.

"Jim. Jim..." Fear and apprehension tinged her voice.

Jim suddenly felt very much awake, and very alert. He looked up to his fiancee, met her eyes.

"Yes, Pam?" he inquired, although he already knew the answer, because he understood her eyes intimately. He had studied them for countless nights and days since he first saw them. He learned to read them from the very beginning. At first he could only read the most obvious messages; the things her eyes spoke clearly and loudly. Happy. Sad. Tired. But as their relationship grew and he got to know Pam on a deeper more intimate level, he became more adept at deciphering every little utterance, every whisper, every nuance in her gaze. He recognized what Pam was telling him right away. Her eyes screamed panic and distress.

"Jim," she quavered, "Jim, it’s time. It’s time."

As Jim walked into the centre of the village, he began to cry out for help. Suddenly shapes that he at first thought were just a part of the buildings began to move toward him. People. Helpers. One man up to them. He was older, with wearied, crazed eyes. Had Jim come to this village under any different circumstances, he might have avoided this man completely, but in his desperation he was just happy to find anyone who could offer some help.

"Sir, sir, can you help me. I need to find a room. The lady here is ready to deliver our child."

The older man did not look at Jim even once. He kept his eyes fixed on the woman, and her engorged breasts, full with milk for the expectant child.

"Oh momma!" the old man said.

Jim thought about beating him senseless, but realized he didn’t have the time, so he implored of him further for help.

"A place to stay, huh? Well you might try the Scranton Inn, just up the way, on your left, serves excellent lentil soup on Feast of the First Fruits weekend, but it’s probably full. It is tourist season you know. Say, you guys wouldn’t happen to have any frankinsense would ya?" He asked, as he showed them his empty pipe. "Something to help an old man with his aches and pains?"

Jim ignored him and coaxed the donkey onward in the direction the old man had told him to go. Fortunately, Jim realized, as he rounded the corner, the man had been telling him the truth. He saw the Inn, but in his haste and excitement, he neglected to notice the "No Vacancy" sign, lit up by a candle, in the window.

He tied the donkey to a post, and helped Pam as she dismounted off of it. Gingerly guiding her inside the Inn, he sat her down on a chair and ran over to the reception, and began honking the horn that was used to summon the attendant.

A few moments later a strange looking man, tall, gangly, and with hair parted down the middle of his oversized head, walked into reception.

"I’m sorry, we’re full." he exclaimed very callously. "You can try The Best Middle-Eastern on Third street."

"Sir, Mr...." Jim panned the mans cloak for a name tag. He found the name.

"Mr. Dwight. Mr. Dwight, my fiancee is about to give birth. Please, we need a rabbi, or a handmaiden or someone to help."

"Your fiancee?" Dwight asked, with obvious abhorrence. "You went in unto this woman before marriage? Tsk tsk. What is this world coming to? You’d swear we were back in the days of Noah. What’s next? Samaritans and Jews begatting with one another? When will it all end? Where is our deliverance?"

Jim was clearly losing his patience. He wasn’t going to even try to explain the divine conception to this simpleton. Yet he knew that he had to get a room here. He couldn’t risk leaving here and searching elsewhere. There just wasn’t enough time. Then he had an idea.

"Listen, sir, I just...she’s about to give birth. If we don’t get her a room soon she’s going to deliver right on the floor of your lobby. And you don’t want that because then according to the law your Inn will be unclean and you’ll lose all your business for the next month. So please..."

Jim’s eyes pleaded with the manager. The manager was clearly not amused. and he stared disapprovingly at Jim. But suddenly his eyes softened and he cast his eyes over to Pam, who was sweating, and moaning in obvious discomfort.

"Fine" he said, finally. "Let me see what I can do."

Night manager Dwight Bar-Dwight Bar-Dwide did his best to find them a room. But every room was occupied. At long last, in desperation he took hold of an idea. He took them out back behind the Inn, to an old diapidated shed. Once inside, Jim looked around, and was amazed by what he saw. On the wall hung various forms of sticks, staves, sling shots, clubs, and a variety of stones and rocks. It looked like an museum of war.

"For the next stoning", Dwight said to Jim, who he saw was eyeing the boulders.

"Right." said Jim, clearly a little frightened.

"Well this had better do, because it’s all I have. You’re welcome to use it. Please put the afterbirth in a jar over on that shelf. I use them to feed my camels. Thank you and have a nice stay."

And with that Dwight left and headed back to reception.

Jim was about to pick up a sling shot when Pam screamed a piercing, blood curdling cry.

Back on the hillside, the three shepherds, or more accurately the two shepherds and the one shepherdess, or more perhaps even more accurately, two sheepherds and one sheepherdess sat on the hillside talking quietly.

"You know what’s really weird?" Kevin asked, to to responses, so he continued.

"The whole circumcision thing."

"Kevin! Stop. Now." Angela sharply replied.

"For the love of Baal, Kevin. Where do you come up with this stuff?" was Oscar’s response.

Kevin was undaunted.

"Seriously though. I mean was there no better way of separating Gods chosen people from the Gentiles? Couldn’t we have just bored a hole in our noses or something? Couldn’t we have got a tattoo or something? Why did we have to cut that off?
"Kevin!" the two others yelled out in unison.

Kevin must not have heard them. He opened his mouth to continue on his rant about the absurdity of the covenant sign.

"I mean, maybe we’re missing out. Maybe it would be better to have fore-"

Suddenly there was a blinding burst of light in the sky, and the silence of the night was shattered by the voices of thousands of angelic beings singing in chorus, "Alleluia! allelujah!" It was so loud that the three shepherds first instinct was to cover their ears, but the glory and the majesty of the angelic beings caused them to shelter their eyes first from the blinding light.They fell down in fear and trembling and the miraculous display before their very eyes.

As suddenly as the music had begun it then hushed, and the shepherds heard a voice calling from the sky.

"Fear not! For I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the Electric Village, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign to you; you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, in a munitions shed behind the Scranton Inn."

And then, in an instant, the angels were gone. Their song had disappeared into the night, as though they had never been there in the first place. The three shepherds lay in stunned silence on the ground. Slowly, carefully, they made their way to their feet, and began brushing themselves off.

"Sweet merciful crap!" exclaimed Kevin.

"A miracle!" exclaimed Angela

"Doubtfully" said Oscar. "But nevertheless, we should probably go to Scranton to see what the scuttlebutt is."

The three of them turned and made their way toward the village.

"What time is it?" Kevin asked. "D’ya think we could get breakfast first?"