The birth of Jesus is not a fantastical, mythical, fairytale we created to explain why we all show up in churches every week. It’s a real event that happened in human history, and it wasn’t quite as cozy and perfect as most of us imagine it to be. Here is the gospel writer Luke’s account:

3 And everyone went to their own town to register. 4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. Luke 2:3-5

So first off, no one is having fun here. There’s one reason Caesar Augustus declared a census, and it wasn’t because he just wanted to know how many people there were. He wanted money. The census was an opportunity to collect taxes from people. Now in the first century, Israel was occupied by a foreign power, the Romans. This was not voluntary. The Jews hated Rome, and now they had to go and give their hard-earned money to the foreign government they hated for the privilege of being subjected by them. And you thought you didn’t like writing a check to the IRS every spring!

Oh, and let’s not forget, this was an out of town trip. Joseph’s ancestry was traced back to King David in the Old Testament so he had to go to his hometown of Bethlehem.

Nazareth was 90 miles from Bethlehem, and it probably took them a week and a half to get there, and it wasn’t an easy?Ladies, for those of you who have been pregnant, how many of you want to do much of anything when you’re 9 months pregnant, much less get up on a donkey and spend a week and a half to go see your in-laws and your husbands’ old stomping grounds?

I don’t think Mary was full of much holiday cheer on her way down to Bethlehem.

6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. Luke 2:6-7

Let’s not over glamorize the manger. It wasn’t a hand crafted baby crib imported from a designer baby store. It was a feeding trough for animals. Most pictures of the Nativity have animals nearby, lovingly gazing at the newborn Savior. I imagine the animals would be a bit angry and restless because someone’s taking their food away! Not quite the most sanitary place to have a child, in a barn or stall or cave or wherever the animals were.

The reason they had to give birth here was because there was no guest room available for them in any inn or lodging place. Would have made sense because everyone was showing up from out of town to register.

So, it’s humiliating enough to give birth in a barn, but here’s something else that might have added insult to injury. This is just a question I have, and Luke doesn’t address it, but where was Joseph’s family in all this?

Remember, Joseph was going to his hometown to pay taxes. Everyone in that town would have been closely or at least distantly related to Joseph. It would have been one big House of David family reunion. No one, no cousin, uncle, distant relative had space for a mother about to give birth? Luke doesn’t answer. Was it because the place truly was packed with out-of-town guests, or did no family member want to take in Joseph and his scandalous fiancee and her mystery child?

I don’t know the answer, but the picture I get of the first Christmas was one of exhaustion, humility, fear, possible rejection because Joseph was within walking distance of countless relatives but here he was in a barn, and loneliness.

No one to share the joy of new birth. No family members on either side. I think the first Christmas in some ways was incredibly lonely.

If Christmas is a time of loneliness for you, you’re not alone.

Now, the reason the Christmas story is a cause for celebration is because God didn’t leave Joseph and Mary and their newborn alone, He sent the shepherds watching over their flocks by night. No one has to be alone at Christmas.