Less than perfect

This week we focus on families: the perfect and the broken ones....

Chris, a thirteen year old boy is spending his first Christmas after his parent's divorce with his mother in South America trying to get away from the pain and confusion of watching his family split up. Here's an extract from the first chapter:

"By now I had reached the entrance to the hotel. Inside was air-conditioned and cool. In the hotel foyer was a large Nativity scene. “Boy these people sure love this stuff”, I thought. It seemed that there where Nativity scenes everywhere. This one was big. The figures were almost waist high. There was Mary all dressed in white with a blue veil. She had this perfect plastic smile on her face. And then there was Joseph. He was tall and strong with a short brown beard. He was holding tightly onto his walking stick. It looked like he was ready to knock anyone over the head who came too near the baby. Then of course there was the little baby peacefully sleeping in the hay. In the corner there was a cow with a long face and a donkey that looked a bit too small to have carried anyone. All of them had little plastic halos. Of course they were the perfect family. Not like my family. Over the top of the stable roof there were a few puffs of cotton wool for the snow". ( from the book yet to be published book Christmas where it’s hot)

How perfect was Jesus family? A break up before the wedding, rumors that Joseph was not Jesus father that would follow him into adulthood, and then later Jesus spends a lot of time with less than perfect families. Take Lazarus and his sisters for instance...