"I love it when ya call me Big Poppa..."

I gotta admit, this time of year, I always think about Joseph. I really feel Mary and the babe get their due this time of year, and with good reason--what better package for the Messiah to come than in the form of a baby and a nursing mama?

But Joseph? I mean, what a hero. First of all, the baby’s not even his and you know that even though the Big Dude totally went over the whole situation with him, that explanation ain’t gonna be cutting it on the corner with the fellas. And I can only imagine Mary at the Inn, “Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me. You didn’t make a reservation? Everybody and their brother is here to be taxed by the Romans, and you didn’t think your knocked-up wife might deserve a room? Oh great, and now my water’s broken.”

But my man persevered and found a place for this woman to birth this child (“Hay, you said? I did mention that this child is supposed to be the Redeemer of Mankind, right? Still nothing? Not even a rollaway in the parlor? No?”) and even swooped them off to Egypt when Herod went ballistic like some ‘roided up boxer before a fight. What a GUY!

People go on and on about how much Mary must have loved and trusted God to give birth to this kid and do everything she did for him. I certainly believe that, especially now that I’m a mother. But Joseph, it seems to me, had at least as hard a job, and he often gets forgotten. Dads too often do. I think my generation is one of the lucky ones, since dads get to be so much more involved than in my parents’ day. But the daddies—at least in our house—are what make the world go ‘round.

I thought before I got pregnant that I couldn’t love my husband more. Then I got pregnant and I thought before I had the baby that now, this was really it: I was all full up, maxxed out on spousely love. Then this wonderful creature came into our lives and whole new apartments in my heart opened up and were immediately rented by this expansive love for daddymmatic. Sometimes it’s the sexy, romantic love of our early years together, other times I’m just tearfully grateful that I’m not doing this baby-rearing stuff alone. It’s corny, it’s cheesy, but it’s true: thinking about Joseph makes me a sentimental sap for my beloved.

Frankly, it makes me sentimental for all the big poppas out there, so let me be the first to send a big Holiday Holla to all the mommaz fellaz.