Where would Jesus be born?

Editor’s note: This is an updated blog post that I originally wrote as an editorial. 

A live Nativity scene in downtown Oconto Falls, Wis. (Sam Lucero photo)

If Joseph and Mary were alive today, looking for a place where Mary could give birth to Jesus, where could they find solace? After some online and empirical research, I’ve concluded that it would not be in a stable filled with animals. No, today it would probably be in a storage unit.

This theory first came to me while driving to work. I noticed construction workers pouring concrete in a lot next to an already existing storage unit facility. Apparently the units were all filled and more were needed. On my five-mile drive to work, at least four storage unit facilities exist. Two of them are “climate controlled” and one is heated. 

No swaddling clothes needed to stay warm here.

I confess to knowing something about storage units. Before moving to Green Bay in 2008, I rented one to store goods while waiting to buy a new home here.

According to the Self Storage Association (yes, there is such a thing), the self storage industry has been one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. commercial real estate industry in the last 40 years. There are more than 51,000 primary self storage facilities in the United States with rentable space that totals 2 billion square feet.

That’s a lot of space for wise men, kings and barn animals.

More than one-third of all U.S. households currently rent a self storage unit, reports the StorageCafe, which is up from one in 10 in 2010. It’s a profitable business as well, with the industry grossing $29 billion, according to SpareFoot Storage Beat.

What do these statistics tell us? I believe they indicate that we Americans are controlled by our possessions. Rental units are no longer used simply to store furniture while a family relocates. Today they serve as long-term rentals to store goods. We own so much that we have to rent storage space to hold all of our stuff that doesn’t fit into closets, attics and garages.

Not all Americans rent storage units. Not the estimated 582,462 who were homelessness in 2022, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Most of these Americans cannot even afford to rent an apartment. Fortunately, churches and communities team up to provide shelters for the homeless, especially during the winter months.

Isn’t something wrong in our country when there is such a disparity between the haves and the have-nots? When an estimated 6.1 square feet of storage space exists for every man, woman and child in this country, yet homeless shelters struggle to find enough space to accommodate people living on the streets?

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the modern-day Joseph and Mary wouldn’t take shelter in a storage unit after all. Storage units have locks to protect all of the worldly possessions inside. Jesus, the Son of God, was born to give hope to the hopeless, to unlock the hardened hearts that bind us to our possessions and blind us to the suffering of others.

Given the choice between a heated storage unit and a crowded homeless shelter, Mary and Joseph would choose the latter. For while the cries of the poor are heard here, so too are the voices of justice that give shelter and comfort. Isn’t their example the reason why the Son of God was born among us?

Christmas joy and grief

Holidays, especially Christmas, bring joy and merriment. But as life unfolds, the loss of loved ones can turn celebration into disconsolation.

Most adults have felt the pain of losing someone: a parent, grandparent, sibling or even a child. When the death of a loved one happens around Christmas, the pain is only magnified.

I’m old enough to have experienced the loss of both parents and many other relatives. My mother, Inez, who suffered a stroke in the summer of 2001, died on Dec. 15, 2001, just 10 days before Christmas. One month later, my father, Joe, died.

To complicate things that year, I was transitioning from a job in Superior to Milwaukee. Thanks to friends in Superior, I was able to avoid packing up and moving our belongings.  

Coping with the loss of a loved one during the Christmas season is a topic that groups such as funeral homes offer to the public this time of year. 

“The holidays are difficult because there are a lot of expectations placed on us,” a counselor at Blaney Funeral Home told me in 2009. “The season sparks us with the reminder that it’s Christmas and our loved one is not with us. We are supposed to be full of holiday spirit, but at times we are not able to muster any happiness.”

Outreach to loved ones, especially seniors, was also the topic of an editorial I wrote a few years ago: “Loneliness can be one of the hardships of growing older, especially when a spouse dies, and it may be intensified during the holiday season.” (The video below illustrates this point.)

Charlie's Bar in Northern Ireland created this video, which shows an elderly man who places a bouquet of flowers on his wife’s grave and then finds Christmas cheer at a pub with a couple who sit, drink and talk to him.

Recently, my two best friends, Kevin George and Ken Vigil — who grew up in my hometown of Ogden, attended college with me and both stood in my wedding — lost a parent. You can say we share that parental grief. But we also have in common the loss of another close friend, Riley Beckstead. 

Kevin, Ken and Riley all attended Bonneville High School in Ogden (I attended Ben Lomond High) and were cross country and track stars. Our paths crossed at the College of Eastern Utah and at Utah State University, where I was married at St. Jerome’s Chapel in 1982.

Riley, a musician, pole vaulter and budding poet and philosopher, was my best man. In 1992, he died of brain cancer. Riley’s death was really my first close-up experience with grief. Kevin, Ken and I were pallbearers at Riley’s funeral. 

A few days ago, I found a Christmas letter Riley had written to me and my wife Laurie. It was written as a poem, with stanza and rhyme, chronicling our friendship over the years. Riley was 32 when he died. His abbreviated life — sans all of the memories with me, Kevin and Ken that could have been — has stayed with me. Every Christmas, when Laurie and I place ornaments on our tree, we are reminded of Riley by the homemade ornament he gave us, which features his photo.

A homemade Christmas ornament of my late friend Riley Beckstead, left, and a Christmas letter he sent a few years before his death.

This Christmas, there will be moments when memories of Christmases past bring sadness. It could be triggered by a song, a photograph or a letter written by a loved one. 

A suggestion from the Blaney Funeral Home counselor: do not be afraid of the memories or of talking about what you are feeling. Family and friends want to hear from you and follow your lead in mentioning the deceased, she said. A good way to keep memories alive is to have a candle that is always lit in a prominent place in the home with a picture of your loved one next to it. 

Is there some special way you remember a loved one at Christmas? If so, share it in the comments below.