The night before Christ came

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Published on Saturday, December 24, 2016

By Evan Asselstine

For the Neepawa Banner

There is nothing I hate worse than wet feet.  Cold wet feet are the worst.  When your feet are wet, it seems every part of you feels it and when your feet are cold it seems to take forever to get warm.  My favourite way to get warm is to get nice and close to a warm fire and let the heat of the fire sink in and warm me to my very bones.

When I was younger, this was never an issue but as you grow older, the things that you used to laugh at don’t seem quite so funny.  Like falling out of a tree, or being chased by dogs or making fun of the dog next door that is always tied up, until he isn’t and then the adrenaline hits and whoosh off you go looking for the nearest tree to get out of reach of those sharp teeth.

My favourite perch was sitting up on the roof of my house. You need to understand that where I am from we don’t have roof peaks; our roofs are flat because we don’t get a lot of rain and zero of that white stuff called snow.  Our roofs are like an extra room and it is to this place that we go after supper to enjoy the breeze and cool off before night time.

Night time is when my humans go to sleep, you see my name is Boots and I am a cat.  Well actually to the family on the east side of our town, I am Boots.  I chase mice and am petted by my human children.  On the west side of my town my name is Samson and I am expected to bear myself with the bearing of one who is the cat of the local priest.  What humans don’t understand is that cats are owned by nobody. We choose who we will allow to take care of us.

The last six years I spend the one day on the east side and one day on the west side of the town.  It took a few months to get my humans adjusted to this schedule but now that they are trained, things work quite well for all concerned.

During the day, I spend my time lying in the sun on the roof top soaking up the rays and conserving my energy for more important things like teasing the dogs.  Nothing irritates a dog more than to hiss and raise your hackles and make all the tough guy sounds, while I am standing on a branch10 feet over their heads.  They go wild, barking and jumping trying to reach me.  I know, low level humour but you take what you can get.  Did you know what dogs are barking when they see a cat?  All they are doing is yelling “CAT, CAT, CAT!”  That’s right I am a cat, see my tail, see my claws and fur. Can’t you say something more entertaining than “Cat?”

After entertaining myself with the dogs, I wander off to find something interesting to do like chase birds, play with light beams or sometimes I find my perch on the gate leading into town and watch the human traffic come and go. There has been a lot of traffic lately.  Some really important human guy told all the humans that they needed to go back to the place where their family started from.  Now talk about a waste of time, for me I am not traveling all the way to Egypt because some lion or tiger or whatever says I had to.  I am a cat and I come and I go and I do as I please.  Humans think they have free choice. Bah, only cats have free choice.

So my town is filling up with lots of strangers and this being lambing season, the shepherds have been out on the hills taking care of their sheep so the town has been fairly quiet this past while. But with all these strangers coming into town there are less and less places for a cat to walk without some human almost stepping on them.  

Night is nice, the stars come out and everything slowly quiets down. That is when I can get down to work and check out my domain.  The other cats and I enjoy a good time singing, which the baker doesn’t appreciate but we are getting better.

Speaking of night, looks like the stores are closing for now.  

Well, well what do we have here?  These two humans are a little late getting into town for the night, they will be lucky to find a spot for the night, every hotel and house is full.

Oh, that’s not good, the female is very pregnant. In fact, if my eyes don’t deceive me, she could even be ready to give birth very soon.  She needs a nesting place, somewhere to have this baby human and there is no place…oh good they are going to the inn, there should be room at the inn. No!  He is turning them away, can’t he see how tired they are, how pregnant she is? Oh, they are going to the priest’s house, he should be able to put them up. No, no he isn’t putting them up. He is turning them away. Oh right, if she has the baby in his house, he will be defiled and won’t be able to go to the temple. They are heading to my human’s house, I know there is no room there but, yes, the stable.  It isn’t a room in the inn but it is warm and the hay is clean and it is out of the weather.  

Yes, they are taking them to the stable, I had better get down and make sure they get things done up right.  Humans can make such a mess of things.  Good, settle down in the stall, lots of nice hay and a clean blanket.  Here comes the Missus she has some nice warm food and extra blankets for the night. Good job. I gave her a tails up.

I shall oversee the stable because everyone knows that cats are great supervisors.  

It appears everyone is settling down for the night. Checked the cow and her calf and they are quiet, the two horses are sleeping standing up.  How do they do that?  Yes, no sheep, they are all out on the hills because it is lambing season so at least we don’t have those smelly beasts around. Time for me to settle down on that rock and keep an eye and ear out.

A few hours go by and then:  

What’s that noise?  Yes, looks like we are having a baby tonight.  There goes the man for the mid-wife.  This should be exciting.  Time passes.

Ahh, there we go, I hear that sound of a baby crying that’s good.  Wait, whoa, hang on, who turned on the light out here.  Wow what a star, it’s huge, it’s awesome, it is beautiful.  It’s shining right over the stable.

Huh, what’s that light out on the hills.  Is that a fire? Something is happening out there, hey what in the world it’s gone.  Oh well, not my problem, not my fault.  Time to get some shut eye.  

Hey, what’s that noise.  What are those shepherds doing in town? They should be out on the hills looking after those sheep.  They are heading towards the stable, well let’s just have a look and see what they are doing.

Now that’s strange, they are kneeling before that new baby and now they are right down on their faces.  Humans are strange.  Going to get a little closer to see what’s going on.  Did one of them just say “Messiah”?  I need to have a look at this baby who is causing all the fuss.

He doesn’t look much different than any other baby I have seen on the outside but there is something different about him.  Just a little closer, he opened his eyes, he looked at me.  There is something different about him, it’s like I know him, it’s like He knows me.  

I think this baby is going to change the world.