December 17, 2001

DOWN HOME:
Crooked angel; perfect Jesus
___Our angel is crooked, and it's all my fault.
___She's as cute as the real McGabriel: White-flannel robe, gold-painted wooden wings, a red-velvet heart, wreath of green and a holly halo. But she just can't seem to sit straight high up on our Christmas tree.
___Not that we haven't tried to help her.
___Joanna perched her up on the tip-top branches when the tree first went up, about a week after Thanksgiving. A couple of

MARV KNOX Editor

weeks later, I couldn't take her leaning anymore. So, I climbed up and tried to help her stand more securely as she presides over all the Christmas decorations in our den.
___Jo and our daughters, Lindsay and Molly, affirmed my efforts. They just didn't like the results.
___"Her robe's sticking out too far," somebody said. "Tuck it back in; it's not supposed to drape over all those branches."
___"I can't tell that you've done much of anything," another chimed in. "She looks about like she always does--crooked."
___"Well, now she's leaning backward, like she's about to tumble off the tree," one of them added, commanding, "Make her stand up straight, Daddy."
___When I climbed back down and looked up at my handiwork, I couldn't really tell that I'd done much good with our angel. Maybe she leans a little less, but she still leans.
___I think she's just too big for the tree. I'd lean, too, if I tried to sit on the top bough of a store-bought fir.
___And like I said, it's my fault.
___It all started when I bought Jo the mixer three or four years ago. That box was big, but I tried to slide it under the tree. Presents are supposed to go under the tree.
___Instead, I knocked the tree over. And I broke the seashell star we had bought at Pawley's Island on vacation one summer. It was Jo's favorite, and I thought I'd croak when I had to tell her what I'd done. But she smiled and gave me a hug and went out and bought the angel.
___Somebody remembered the seashell star the other night when we were trying to get that angel to sit up straight in our tree. I felt another pang of guilt for shattering a lovely decoration and beautiful reminder of a happy trip.
___One of the girls, apparently reading my mind, spoke words of love. "I like the angel better," she said.
___"She's not perfect, but I like her up there," somebody else declared.
___Me, too. Like all the handmade ornaments that decorate our tree, she reminds me Jesus is the only Perfect Gift anybody ever received at Christmas--or any other time.
___And yet Jesus came to Earth to save all the broken seashell lives and redeem all the crooked-angel mistakes we make.
___Life, like our crooked angel, is not perfect. But thank God and Christmas, Jesus is.

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