Have you ever stopped to think about how difficult it would have been for Mary and Joseph to make the eighty-mile trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem? The decree to register for the census couldn’t have come at a worse time. Mary was due to give birth any day!

When they finally arrived, Bethlehem was so crowded that they ended up staying where the animals were kept. With the birth imminent, it was too risky to start back, so after registering, they stayed on in the animal courtyard. Because it was such a public place, there was no keeping this birth a secret when labor started. It became the talk of the village. But little did those gossiping villagers know the significance of what was happening that night in Bethlehem. Two thousand years later we’re still talking about that extraordinary birth of Jesus!