Family life, family, family, family. 

During the Christmas season, all of us have family traditions. 

And as a little boy, one of the great family traditions in my home was going out and buying the Christmas tree. My two older sisters, my younger brother, my mother, my father and I, we’d go to a lot. And this is something my dad just loved, picking out the Christmas tree. 

And we would spend a lot of time—he wanted the perfect tree. And when they found the perfect tree, Mom and dad bought it, and then my dad would always buy extra branches and bring it back to the house, put it in the stand, and if there was any bare spots in the tree, my dad would take a drill, and he’d drill into the tree and add the extra branches. It had to be perfect. 

And then the other thing my dad loved to do after the ornaments were on the tree, and he did it one strand at a time of the tinsel, the lead tinsel, and would hang it. It had to be perfect. And we loved it. 

My dad passed, and the following Christmas was pretty tough for my family. And my mother wanted to do everything the same, so we went out to the lot and bought the tree and brought it back, and sure enough, it was crooked as can be. She couldn’t get it in the stand. It was an exercise in frustration, and she was so disappointed.  

So I remember the tree that we had, she went and she opened the front door of our house, and she took the tree and she threw it into the front lawn right into the snow and was done with Christmas trees. And we went out and we bought an artificial tree. 

The neighbor saw the tree in the snow and knocked on the door. 

He said, “Mrs. Donahue, could we have that Christmas tree?” 

Oh, my God, you should have seen all of that. 

Anyways, with the best of intentions, every family has its ups and downs. It’s good moments and it’s difficult moments. It’s frustrating moments, even during the Christmas season. 

The movie “The Line In Winter,” there’s a great line in it, and Catherine Hepburn looks at the camera and says, “Every family has its ups and downs,” and it’s true, and so did the holy family. The holy family, the beautiful family of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. 

In the gospel today, he’s 12 years old. They go to Jerusalem and they lose the child. Now, Jesus wasn’t lost. He was in the temple. He knew where he was, but can you imagine the anxiety that Mary and Joseph had looking for him for three days? The fear, it’s just simply hard to imagine. 

And the joy when they found him in the temple and at the same time not understanding exactly why he was there and what was going on. He goes home with them, and they say in the gospel that he grew in age and wisdom and understanding, and he was obedient. 

The word “obedient” means “obetari.” It means to listen, and Jesus listened as he grew in age and wisdom. 

Every family has its ups and downs. Your family does. My family does. But the beauty of the holy family that teaches us a lesson on this feast day is no matter what, we come together in unity. We come together in peace. We are invited to listen carefully to one another and to try to model our family lives and our lives after that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The model of the holy family.