Like a glass ornament falling from the Christmas tree to the hard plank floor below, our cultural Christmas traditions have shattered into a thousand pieces. We will never put them back together again. But as we sort through the colored shards scattered below the tree and under the furniture, we recognize parts of the design.

Of course, our Christmases have long been split between sacred and secular celebrations, the commercial and familial, the sentimental and recently the political.

I am not much of a partisan in the Christmas wars; I don’t insist that the clerk at the post office wish me a Merry Christmas instead of happy holidays. I am not inclined to think of an army of heavenly host appearing to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night made up entirely of pudgy cherubs, but that’s okay. I am completely fine with the Magi showing up at the cattle stall, though the image (both the cattle stall and the Magi at it) is not scripturally warranted. I love Luther’s lullaby even if the little Lord Jesus made a lot of crying.

On the more secular side, I still tell our grandkids that I believe in Santa Claus though every one of them is now a non-believer and mocks my naiveté. I am not sure why Jimmy Stewart and the people of Bedford Falls sing “Auld Lang Syne” on Christmas Eve, but, yes, it’s a wonderful life.

The story of the Nativity is no more a parable about immigration policy than it is a children’s story about a little drummer boy (pa-rum-pum-pum-pum). But if thinking so gets the “Love Spoken Here” crowd to read the narratives in Matthew and Luke, so be it.

Sacred and secular, commercial and familial, sentimental and political, Christmas is now less than a week away. What shall we make of it? How shall we understand it? Yes, go first to the narratives in Matthew and in Luke. And then pause and listen to the sounds and look at the sights of the season.

The words of a second-tier Christmas song have filled my mind this past week. It’s an old Appalachian folk hymn transcribed and then modified to be sung at Christmas.  “When Mary birthed Jesus t’was in a cow’s stall,” the second modified verse  of  “I Wonder as I Wander” sings. But it is the first and original verse that has captured my thoughts this week filled with news of hatred and death at Bondi Beach and Brown University.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor on’ry people like you and like I…
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

Some newer versions of the song change “on’ry” in the third line to “ord’nary.” Yes, the Savior came for to die for ordinary people, but perhaps more pointedly for ornery people. Like you and like me.

Paul describes us as having been enemies of God (Romans 5:10), alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. (Colossians 1:21). Ornery and more. The Savior came for to die for poor ornery people like you and like me. For poor ornery people like Ahmed al-Ahmed and Sofia Gurman, Muslim and Jewish heroes at Bondi Beach.  And for Sajid and Naveed Akram and “a person of interest” in Rhode Island.

We will be with family this Christmas and the non-believing grandchildren will mock my insistence that Santa is real. Progressive friends will post silly memes about Mary and Joseph and immigration policy. Others will post blasphemous memes of Santa (he’s actually not real) kneeling before the manger bed.

In it all, I hope I give a thought to Jesus the Savior who came for to die for poor ornery people. Like me.