A father’s two young children are sitting with him on their catch in a darkened room looking at the Christmas Tree all alight with presents under it. 

One of his children turns to him and asks:  “Daddy, why do we put lights on our Christmas Trees, they didn’t have electricity way back then?  Where did that come from?”  The other child turns to him with a questioning look as well.

The dad thought a minute and then he reached over and turned on a light and picked up cut glass dish that was sitting on the table and asked his two children to look into it. 

“Do you see the way the light turns into colors when you look through the glass?”  He asked.

“Yes.?”  they both replied not quite understanding the connection between the dish and the Christmas Tree.

The father started by asking:  “Why do we celebrate Christmas?”

One child answers rather matter of factly “It is Jesus birthday!”  The child didn’t add the word “silly” but you could tell by the tone of her voice that she thought it was not a very bright question.

The father smiled and started to explain:  “That’s right.  Well one story goes that there were pine trees around Bethlehem, very much like these trees here.  And you know when Jesus was born there was the most brilliant star in the sky that directed the wiseman to where Jesus lay.  Well on that night there were very heavy dew drops on the pine trees around the city.  And that star light shone through those drops just the same way that the light of our lamp shown through the glass dish.  And that bright light in the sky became all the beautiful colors shining from the drops of dew on the trees.  It was as if every tree had a string of bright heavenly lights brighter than any string of lights we have today.  So today we put lights on the trees to celebrate the wonderful light from heaven that marked Jesus birth.

The two children stared at their Christmas tree.

“Thanks daddy.” They both said together “Love You”

The father sighed a very contented sigh “I love you both too”