A Middle Easterner reading the Gospel story, said Bailey, would immediately recognize its events this way. Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem, where they were among numerous relatives. We are told that Mary had just visited her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist; and Joseph, who was "of the house and lineage of David," would have had many kinsfolk in the region.

It would have been unthinkable for them to stay in a public inn. Instead, they sought out the home of relatives. But there were other relatives there as well, so that there was no room in the guest room (kataluma) and they had to sleep in the lower, outer room, the one into which animals were often brought at night. When Jesus was born, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes (a Middle Eastern tradition) and laid in the manger, where all the folks in the living room could admire him too.

Thus Jesus was not born into the cold, forbidding atmosphere usually depicted by our Western understanding of the text, but among extended family members gathered in Bethlehem for the same reason Joseph was there. The Savior of the world was born in the midst of a loving, doting family, among aunts and uncles and cousins known to His parents and loved by them.

In other words, Jesus Himself came home at Christmas. He was born in a real home, in the bosom of a large family. This was real incarnation, to be born as other Middle Eastern children were born, and are often born to this day.

Why does it matter anyway? Why do we always associate Christmas with home?

I suppose it has to do with tradition, doesn't it -- with a sense of belonging and happiness we have all experienced at Christmastime. Many of our best memories are built around being home at Christmas. We remember the beauty of those childhood Christmas trees, decked in lights and covered with icicles -- the magical packages under the tree -- the smell of gingerbread in the air -- the music from a favorite recording -- the neighborhood Santa Claus -- the sense of secrecy and excitement as the great day drew near -- maybe a deep snow on Christmas eve -- the wonderful feeling of love and sharing, when even the gruffest and most irritable members of the family seemed to grow soft and tender. Christmas and home just seem naturally to go together.

But there is something more than this. It has to do with a deeper sense of home that we feel at Christmastime -- a sense of cosmic belonging -- as if, at this special time of the year, we come closer to eternity than at any other time. We remember Augustine's famous prayer, "Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

At Christmas, the veil between this life and the other seems thinnest, as if we could simply step from one side to the other. Bethlehem is the doorway, and we sometimes fancy we can hear the angel choirs a little beyond.

The German poet Holderin, one of the contemporary existentialists, has written of the essential "homelessness" of all of us -- our inability ever to feel completely at home in this world. There is always a longing, a yearning for something more, for something beyond, for a life we can suspect but cannot touch.