Sometimes the most profound of gifts is the simplest.

We celebrated Christmas a few days early, as the schedules of our family with jobs and time off only allowed one day when we could all be together, before the 25th even had arrived.

My son enjoys cooking, so he meticulously measured and cooked pancakes with one of those new silicone rings which are marketed by an internet store. My youngest daughter had prepared through slow cooking, a ham given to us by a ministry (supplied year after year by a local grocer) for volunteering with them. I merely heated sausages to offset the rich homemade sauce he had made from the recipe my wife's father had gotten from her grandmother.

We laughed and passed the bounty around the table, humor flying from the antics of our dog circling the perimeter, her earnest begging prompting bits of meat sneaked to her. I could not begin to understand the laughter for it has been the first time in three years we've all felt so relaxed and jovial.

As we unwrapped and exchanged the things crafted or purchased, from a flashlight my boy desired, to a guitar my daughter suggested I pass on to my son in law, I thanked God for the blessings of a year which had given us so much in love, that it overflowed like this!

But the single most profound exchange of our celebration was the mirth which passed fluently, effortlessly between all of us! God had given a moment which had not happened in the last three years, for which I silently thanked Him, while out of the blessings of this special time, we all guffawed at almost anything, our little pet being the most frequent comedian! Such a simple thing, such a gift!!

God's gift to us, was also both profound and simple! A baby laying in a manger in a poor town of Israel, huddled 'neath the worship capitol of Israel, whose walls could not hide the egregious sins of the leaders. God came and redeemed his people, an unimaginable act by any measure!