Why do we celebrate Christmas? As Unitarian Universalists, most of us believe that Jesus was a human being, that he was an inspired spiritual teacher and compelling social revolutionary.  For some of us, we do celebrate the story of the only Son of God come to save the world, and that belief is welcome here today. For others, the culture in which we live tells this story, over and over, and we gather to experience it once again. But it is not only the Christian religion that needs to tell this story, over and over. As a Unitarian Universalist people of faith, we, too, need to tell this story over and over because, like all great religious myths that have been told through the ages, this night and this story hold essential spiritual truths. Come and experience the story once again, with all the characters you know and love including our congregation’s beloved Friendly Beasts! Join us for a Christmas Nativity pageant in word and song with the timeless story of Mary and Joseph, the kings, and the shepherds.

Edwin Friedman, one of the pioneers of 'Family Systems' has a book of fables which he uses to talk about the universal predicament we all face: the hero's journey of becoming our own person.  We may scratch our head and ask, 'isn't that what we're doing?'  But if we look at the myriad of ways we unconscious, tenaciously, hold on to the habits we were taught when we're young, we discover we are all composites of patterns we adopted early in our lives to survive and never managed to unlearn.  We talk a great deal about the value of freedom but, don't often realize how captive we are to our own past.