Tis the season for binging on hours of Christmas movies.

I confess, this is my favorite month of the year. Not only do I love everything associated with Christmas; the decorations, the baking, the Advent devotionals, and the infectious holiday cheer, I especially love Christmas movies.

Yes, I am a hopeless romantic. However cheesy the plot may seem they always end with a “Happily Ever After” (which my husband has predicted after fifteen minutes into the movie). These cliché endings are what bring such timeless appeal to so many during this time of year. It is the season of hope and love and dreaming that wishes do come true.

But what if they don’t? What if our life isn’t turning  out according to plan?

If it isn’t all tied up with a pretty little bow, with all conflicts resolved like in the movies (and all in under two hours)?

As I watch the third special where the hero or heroine just happens to be royalty, an heir to a land far away, I can’t help but recall my childhood dreams. What little girl hasn’t dreamt of growing up to marry her Prince Charming? The perfect life with no dishes to do and beautiful clothes to wear everyday. Instead we wake up to bills and dust bunnies and jeans that fit just a little too snug from all the Christmas cookies we ate watching movies.

Just when we think every detail of everyone else’s life is perfect except ours, when we’ve resigned ourselves to drowning our disappointment in another glass of eggnog, the realization of the details from the greatest story ever told hit home .

Yes, Mary was engaged to be married and probably dreaming of all the details of that special day as all young girls do. Becoming divinely pregnant surely wasn’t in her  plans. And in our day of baby registries and Pinterest inspired nurseries what a heart wrenching surprise  it must have been to lay the King of the world in a feeding trough. As she spent her first  night as a mother in a stable some of the thoughts   she pondered may have been how things were not going according to her plan.

But that was a TRUE ROYAL CHRISTMAS! And it will have a happily ever after – one day.

So maybe the hope this story brings to us is that sometimes obstacles are part of God’s plan for our  lives.

When details and circumstances aren’t tied up like pretty little packages,

when tears are falling instead of  snow on cold, winter nights remember the first

Christmas love story.

Remember the angels rejoiced that Emmanuel came to earth for you,

and someday soon your PRINCE will come.

Ponder these things in your heart.