The next best thing after Christmas, is Christmas.
This is what I want to remember every Christmas...a story I listened to starry eyed and blissfully savouring it with the innocence of the child that I was. I have since lost my innocence. I am a sinner with a host of sins; but I never lost the appetite for the story, nor did I forget its message: a reminder of what Christmas is all about. It is a time to glorify the Lord; and thank him for the best present he gave us on this day and the blessings thereafter, which most times we fail to notice and believe ourselves unlucky or cursed. It is a time for goodwill. This is the story as told to me by my grandmother and the priests and as Iread it in the Bible:

[ Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judaea during the time when Herod was king. Soon afterwards, some men who studied the stars came from the east to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the baby born to be the king of the Jews? We saw his star when it came up in the east, and we have come to worship him." 
When King Herod heard about this, he was very upset, and so was everyone else in Jerusalem. He called together all the chief priests and the teachers of the law and asked them, "Where will the Messiah be born?"
"In the town of Bethlehem is Judaea," they answered. "For this is what the prophet wrote:
""Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least of the leading cities of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will guide my people Israel."" 
So Herod called the visitors from the east to a secret meeting and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem with these instructions:
"Go and make a careful search for the child, and when you find him, let me know, so that I too may go and worship him."
And so they left, and on their way they saw the same star they had seen in the east. When they saw it, how happy they were, what joy was theirs! It went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. They went into the house, and when they saw the child with his mother Mary, they knelt down and worshipped him. They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and presented them to him.
Then they returned to their country by another road, since God had warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod....Joseph ...took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go back to the land of Israel, because those who tried to kill the child are dead." So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went back to Israel.
But when Joseph heard that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as king of Judaea, he was afraid to go there. He was given more instructions in a dream, so he went to the province of Galilee and made his home in a town named Nazareth. And so what the prophets had said came true. "He will be called a Nazarene."]

This is the word of the Lord!
Thanks be to God!